Firmware Engineer – Sensing & Actuation

Proception Inc.; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Proception Inc. is seeking a skilled embedded systems engineer to develop real-time firmware for sensing, actuation, and control on our robotic hands.

You will bring up hardware, implement low-level drivers, and work with hardware teams to ensure precision and dexterity. Candidates should have BS/MS in robotics or related field and strong experience in Rust/C, microcontrollers (STM32H7/ESP32/RP2040), motor control, RTOS, and embedded tooling.

Qualifications

• Pursuing or completed BS/MS in Robotics, Electrical or Computer Engineering or related fields.
• Strong Rust and C experience in embedded systems development.
• Hands-on microcontroller bring-up (STM32H7, ESP32, RP2040) and low-level drivers.
• Experience with motor control systems, BLDC/servo drivers, and encoders.
• Experience with SPI, I2C, CAN/CAN-FD, UART, PWM, ADC, DMA.
• Worked with various actuators (BLDC, servo, stepper).
• Familiarity with RTOS (FreeRTOS, Zephyr) or bare-metal.
• Understanding of real-time control loops, sensor fusion, timing-sensitive firmware.
• Comfort with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG/SWD, and hardware tools.
• Experience with IMUs, tactile/force sensors, or high-rate sensing pipelines.
• Knowledge of Linux RT or FPGA-based sensor interfaces (beneficial).
• Familiarity with EtherCAT or safety-critical firmware (beneficial).
• Experience with ROS/ROS2, HIL pipelines, or automated hardware testing.
• Experience building bootloaders, OTA systems, or secure firmware signing.

Responsibilities

• Develop real-time firmware for sensing, actuation, and control loops on custom robotic platforms.
• Bring up new PCB revisions, validate hardware interfaces, and implement DMA-optimized drivers.
• Integrate and calibrate tactile arrays, force sensors, IMUs, and encoder feedback.
• Build motor control firmware including high-frequency position, torque, and velocity loops.
• Design safety systems: watchdogs, overcurrent/thermal protections, fault pipelines.
• Develop bootloader, OTA, and distributed updates for fleet-scale firmware deployment.
• Collaborate with hardware, perception, and AI/control teams to tune performance.
• Build HIL test setups and automated validation tools for firmware testing.

Skills

Rust

C

Embedded systems

STM32H7

ESP32

RP2040

Motor control

RTOS: FreeRTOS

Sensor interfaces

Hardware debugging

ROS/ROS2

Education

BS/MS in Robotics/EE/CE

Tools

JTAG/SWD

Logic Analyzers

Oscilloscopes

Job description

Join our embedded systems team to build the sensing, motor control, and low-level actuation firmware that powers our next-generation robotic hands. You will develop real-time drivers, bring up custom hardware, and integrate advanced sensors and actuators to support precise and dexterous manipulation.

Requirements

• 01 Pursuing or completed BS/MS in Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields
• 02 Strong Rust (Embassy) and C experience in embedded systems development
• 03 Hands-on experience bringing up microcontrollers (STM32H7, ESP32, RP2040) and writing low-level drivers
• 04 Experience with motor control systems, BLDC/servo drivers, encoder interfaces, and actuator feedback loops
• 05 Experience with embedded communication protocols: SPI, I2C, CAN/CAN-FD, UART, PWM, ADC, DMA
• 06 Worked with different types of actuators (BLDC, servo, stepper, etc.)
• 07 Familiarity with real-time operating systems (FreeRTOS, Zephyr) or bare-metal development
• 08 Understanding of real-time control loops, sensor fusion, and timing-sensitive firmware
• 09 Comfortable using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG/SWD debuggers, and low-level hardware tools
• 10 (+) Experience with IMUs, tactile sensors, force sensors, or high-rate sensing pipelines
• 11 (+) Knowledge of Linux real-time systems (PREEMPT_RT, Xenomai) or FPGA-based sensor interfaces
• 12 (+) Familiarity with EtherCAT, distributed embedded networks, or safety-critical firmware
• 13 (+) Experience with ROS/ROS2, HIL pipelines, or automated hardware testing
• 14 (+) Experience building bootloaders, OTA systems, or secure firmware signing

Details & responsibilities

• 01 Develop real-time firmware for sensing, actuation, and control loops on custom robotic platforms
• 02 Bring up new PCB revisions, validate hardware interfaces, and implement DMA-optimized drivers
• 03 Integrate and calibrate tactile arrays, force sensors, IMUs, and millisecond-level encoder feedback
• 04 Build reliable motor control firmware including high-frequency position, torque, and velocity loops
• 05 Design safety systems: watchdogs, overcurrent/thermal protections, and fault detection pipelines
• 06 Develop bootloader, OTA, and distributed update systems for fleet-scale firmware deployment
• 07 Collaborate closely with hardware, perception, and AI/control teams to tune system performance
• 08 Build HIL test setups and automated validation tools for continuous firmware testing
• 01 Direct impact on core sensing and actuation systems powering next-generation robotic hands
• 02 Collaborate with top-tier roboticists, embedded engineers, and AI researchers
• 03 Access to high-end labs, custom testing rigs, and in-house advanced robotic platforms
• 04 Competitive salary and meaningful equity