Principal Firmware Embedded Engineer

CI Solutions; Los Alamitos (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

CI Solutions seeks a Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer to own the CR-One firmware platform and the tools for build, provision, release, update, and support. You will lead the firmware across devices in customer environments and collaborate with hardware, backend, product, and manufacturing teams.

Deep expertise in embedded Rust, RTOS, and secure boot, plus hands-on debugging and OTA lifecycle management, are essential to drive reliable deployments and future capabilities for connected readers

Qualifications

• Experience with embedded systems and performance-sensitive software.
• Ability to debug hardware from datasheets and protocol specs.
• Experience taking ownership of large codebases without stopping delivery.
• Experience supporting embedded products through production and after deployment.

Responsibilities

• Take technical ownership of the CR-One firmware platform and its build, flash, provisioning, release, and update pipelines.
• Safely extend and improve firmware running on devices in customer and partner environments.
• Own the OTA release lifecycle, including signing, staged deployment, rollback, health validation, and incident response.
• Diagnose firmware and hardware problems using logs, telemetry, serial traces, and controlled reproduction.
• Improve reproducible builds, release documentation, and operational visibility.
• Maintain backward-compatibility across firmware versions, device configurations, and shared wire protocols.
• Support factory programming, provisioning, production testing, hardware revisions, and manufacturing failure analysis.
• Partner with backend and dashboard engineers on device configuration, telemetry, fleet health, and remote support.
• Help define the firmware architecture for future CR-One generations.
• Improve the system incrementally while continuing to deliver customer and partner capabilities.

Skills

Embedded systems

RTOS-based development

Firmware debugging

Device lifecycle management

Cross-functional collaboration

Industrial-grade security

Tools

ESP-IDF

FreeRTOS

ESP32

TLS

OTA tooling

Job description

Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer — Rust and Connected Devices

About CI Solutions

CI Solutions develops secure identity and credentialing technology for schools and other organizations. Our products support student identification, card issuance, RFID and NFC credentials, connected readers, and integrations with the systems our clients use every day.

CR-One is our networked NFC/RFID reader platform. It supports student-ID, transportation, food service, access, attendance, and other credential-based programs.

The first generation of CR-One readers is moving into customer and partner environments, and we are hiring an experienced firmware engineer to take technical ownership of the platform.

The role

We are looking for a Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer to own the CR-One firmware platform and the tools used to build, provision, release, update, and support it.

You will take ownership of an in-production system, develop a deep understanding of its architecture, keep the deployed fleet healthy, and extend it for future products and use cases. You will work closely with hardware, backend, product, manufacturing, technical services, and external engineering partners.

What you will work on

• Embedded Rust device architecture
• NFC RFID
• Cellular, BLE, USB, and GNSS
• Security and device lifecycle
• Protocols and fleet tooling

Responsibilities:

• Take technical ownership of the CR-One firmware platform and its build, flash, provisioning, release, and update pipelines.
• Safely extend and improve firmware running on devices in customer and partner environments.
• Own the OTA release lifecycle, including signing, staged deployment, rollback, health validation, and incident response.
• Diagnose firmware and hardware problems using logs, telemetry, serial traces, and controlled reproduction.
• Improve reproducible builds, release documentation, and operational visibility.
• Maintain backward compatibility across firmware versions, device configurations, and shared wire protocols.
• Support factory programming, provisioning, production testing, hardware revisions, and manufacturing failure analysis.
• Partner with backend and dashboard engineers on device configuration, telemetry, fleet health, and remote support.
• Help define the firmware architecture for future CR-One generations.
• Improve the system incrementally while continuing to deliver customer and partner capabilities.

Required Qualifications:

• Strong professional in embedded systems, infrastructure, performance-sensitive, or similarly demanding software.
• Experience with RTOS-based systems, interrupts, peripheral drivers, persistent state, and resource-constrained devices.
• Ability to bring up and debug hardware directly from datasheets, register maps, and protocol specifications.
• Experience supporting embedded product through production and after deployment.
• Understanding of firmware release safety, OTA updates, device recovery, and field-failure investigation.
• Experience taking ownership of a large, evolving codebase and improving it without stopping delivery.
• Sound engineering judgment and the ability to communicate clearly across firmware, hardware, backend, product, and operations teams.

Preferred Experience:

Experience in some of the following areas is valuable, but we do not expect candidates to have worked with every technology:

• Embedded Rust or Rust on ESP-IDF.
• ESP32, ESP-IDF, FreeRTOS, or comparable embedded platforms.
• LTE-M, NB-IoT, Quectel, u-blox, or other cellular modem integrations.
• MQTT, TLS, mutual TLS, PKI, X.509, and certificate enrollment.
• NFC & RFID protocols, including ISO 14443, ISO 15693, MIFARE, DESFire, or NFC-V.
• USB device stacks, HID, CDC, TinyUSB, BLE, and GNSS.
• Secure boot, flash encryption, hardware provisioning, and protected key storage.
• Binary and JSON serialization formats.
• Python, Bash, firmware release tooling, cross-compilation, and build automation.
• MQTT-broker, or fleet-management experience.

Why Join CI Solutions

For more than 30 years, we have built our business by earning the trust of our customers, partners, and employees. We value long-term relationships, we approach our work with integrity and take pride in delivering solutions that customers rely on every day.

We are a small, agile, and fast-paced company that offers employees the opportunity to take ownership, drive improvements, work collaboratively across departments, and make a meaningful impact without layers of bureaucracy.

In this role, you will own the CR-One firmware platform and the decisions you make will directly shape how current and future devices are built, deployed and supported. This role is a strong fit for an engineer who enjoys ambitious embedded work, wants meaningful technical ownership, and is motivated by seeing hardware operate successfully in real customer environments.

* This role is not eligible for visa sponsorship *