Platform Security Engineering - OpenBMC

United States Digital Space LLC; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 364,500 - 445,500; Full time

Job summary

United States Digital Space LLC in San Francisco seeks an experienced firmware engineer to develop OpenBMC management firmware. The role requires designing production-level firmware with a focus on security and manageability across platforms.

Candidates should have 8+ years in systems security, hands-on experience with OpenBMC, and proficiency in C/C++ and Python. The position offers a competitive salary and requires a minimum of 25% in-office presence.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in systems security, 5 years in firmware and hardware security.
• Hands-on experience with OpenBMC and D-Bus.
• Strong knowledge of Linux and Yocto/OpenEmbedded.

Responsibilities

• Design and ship firmware for x86 and Arm platforms using Yocto.
• Implement BMC communications and manage security posture.
• Build verification tools for static analysis and firmware extraction.

Skills

Systems security expertise

Cross-functional leadership

OpenBMC experience

C/C++ and Python programming

Linux user-space/kernel fundamentals

Debugging skills

Clear communication

NIST firmware security knowledge

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Job description

About the role

The company is standing up a founding team to own the OpenBMC-based management firmware running across its server fleet. You would be one of the first engineers on it. That means production firmware and manageability features (board bring‑up through production) on one side, and hardening that firmware against sophisticated adversaries on the other.

Security is a first‑class constraint in everything you ship: you'll write firmware to a high security bar and partner closely with our firmware security and hardware engineers on secure boot, signing, and attestation.

What You'll Do

Production and manageability:

• Design, build, and ship OpenBMC firmware and manageability features for x86 and Arm (including GPU) platforms, from bring‑up through production, using Yocto/OpenEmbedded
• Build the management stack on DMTF/OCP standards (MCTP, PLDM, SPDM, Redfish, RDE) and IPMI/KCS: sensors, telemetry, inventory, logging, RAS
• Implement BMC‑to‑BIOS/host communications, eSPI/LPC, thermal/fan/power management (PMBus)
• Work the hardware/firmware boundary: I2C/I3C, SPI, PCIe, SMBus, device trees, U‑Boot, Linux

Security and hardening:

• Own the BMC security posture: secure and measured boot, root of trust, attestation (SPDM), authenticated update (PLDM FW Update), rollback protection, attack‑surface reduction
• Lead threat modeling and secure design reviews; run coordinated vulnerability disclosure with vendors and the upstream community
• Build verification tooling: static analysis, fuzzing, firmware extraction, CI gating

Who You Are

• 8+ years of experience in systems security, with at least 5 years focused on firmware and hardware security (firmware, bootloaders, and OS‑level security)
• Strong technical cross‑functional leadership skills, direction setting
• Hands‑on OpenBMC/BMC firmware experience on x86 and/or Arm, from bring‑up through production with hands‑on D‑Bus/sdbusplus
• Strong C/C++ and Python, deep Linux user‑space/kernel fundamentals, and Yocto/OpenEmbedded proficiency
• A security mindset applied to firmware, not bolted on afterward
• Upstream contributions to OpenBMC, U‑Boot, DMTF, or OCP
• Working knowledge of out‑of‑band and in‑band management, the relevant DMTF specs, and the device interfaces they run over
• Strong debugging and a track record of shipping reliable, well‑tested code.
• Clear communication across internal teams and external vendors
• Ability to work effectively across hardware and software boundaries
• Knowledge of NIST firmware security guidelines and hardware security frameworks, specifically SP 800-193 and 800-147/155

Strong candidates may also have

• Hardware roots of trust and attestation: Caliptra, OCP S.A.F.E., TPM/HRoT, SPDM
• Memory‑safe systems code in Rust or Zig
• Firmware vulnerability research, reverse‑engineering, or fuzzing
• Previous work with AI/ML infrastructure security

Compensation

Annual salary range: $405,000 – $405,000 USD

Logistics

Minimum education: Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience. Required field of study: a field relevant to the role as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience. Minimum years of experience: years of experience required will correlate with the internal job level requirements for the position. Location‑based hybrid policy: Currently, we expect all staff to be in one of our offices at least 25% of the time. Visa sponsorship: We sponsor visas.