Firmware Engineer, Data Centers

53 Stations; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Meter is seeking an embedded systems engineer to design a performant switch OS and firmware for data-center TOR and spine platforms in San Francisco. You will collaborate with hardware, QA, and infrastructure teams to deliver robust networking software powering next‑gen data centers.

Key tasks include bringing new switches to production, scaling protocols like BGP, ECMP, LACP, VXLAN and EVPN, and improving firmware release processes to pass long stability tests.

Qualifications

• Proficiency in writing and debugging embedded Linux software, firmware, or device drivers in C/C++.
• Experience with switching SDKs is a plus, as is familiarity with Golang or similar backend languages.
• Understanding of networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, L2/L3) is helpful and learnable on the job.

Responsibilities

• Bring new switches to production by integrating and validating the switching chip SDK, with reliable boot, all ports operational, and drivers passing QA.
• Scale our system’s implementation of protocols such as BGP, ECMP, LACP, VXLAN, and EVPN, with cross-team collaboration.
• Improve firmware releases by automating monitoring, upgrades, and rollbacks; ensure a 30-day stress test passes without crashes.

Skills

Embedded Linux

C/C++

Device drivers

Golang

Networking fundamentals

Tools

Switching SDKs

Job description

The internet runs the world. Organizations across the world—from offices and schools to data centers and manufacturing facilities—spend billions annually on computer networking to stay productive.

However, these networks are messy and brittle. Traditional networking companies only build one piece of the puzzle—either hardware, software, or operations—but never all three, leading to inefficient silos and slow changes. Network engineers, who are the lifeblood of the industry,are often left scrambling to fix issues, hand editing configs, guess-and-checking solutions, and worrying how the ever-increasing complexity of the system they manage will break.

Meter has spent the last decade vertically integrating the fragmented computer networking industry across hardware (power, routing, switches, security, wireless), firmware, operating systems, and real-world operations. By owning the full stack, we make it exceptionally easy for any business to have great networking, internet, and Wi-Fi. We believe people who build hardware and software should be the ones responsible for it. Our ambition is to evolve internet infrastructure into a utility, and we raised a $170M Series C to advance our work.

Why data centers?

We've extended Meter's hardware, firmware, and infrastructure platforms to include Ethernet top-of-rack and spine switching.

Paired with Meter's end-to-end delivery model, customers get one accountable operator instead of a stitched-together stack of vendors — the team that designs the hardware also writes the OS, builds the monitoring software, and runs the deployment. Pricing is tied to power consumption, which is how businesses actually buy data center capacity today. Learn more about our approach to automation at meter.ai.

What success looks like

You will build and design a performant switch OS and firmware. You will work cross-functionally with Meter's engineering leadership, hardware, QA, and infrastructure teams, who have previously built some of the most widely deployed products in networking.

In your first 6-12 months, you’ll have worked towards the following outcomes relevant to our current and future TOR and Spine switches:

• Bring new switches to production by integrating and validating the switching chip SDK, with reliable boot, all ports operational, and drivers passing QA.

• Scale our system’s implementation of protocols such as BGP, ECMP, LACP, VXLAN, and EVPN, with one (of many) goals being observing every event on every device in every network. This will require working with relevant teams on data models and feature scoping.

• Improve firmware releases by working on the bring up process and further automating monitoring, upgrades, and rollbacks; your work should pass a 30-day stress test with no firmware crashes or unexplained link drops.

Who you are

• Proficiency in writing and debugging embedded Linux software, firmware, or device drivers in C/C++.

• Experience with switching SDKs is a plus, as is familiarity with Golang or similar backend languages.

• Understanding of networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, L2/L3 networking) is helpful. However, we’re happy to have a sufficiently motivated person learn quickly on the job.

• Excited to play an early and broadly influential role in the development of Meter’s Data Center products.

• A mindset of curiosity and impact motivated by turning complex systems into simple, elegant customer experiences.

• You raise issues early and are known to be dependable, kind, and autonomous.

Compensation

• The estimated pay range for this role is $210,000 - $250,000.

• Additionally, this role is eligible to participate in Meter's equity plan.

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