Principal Firmware Engineer

Brahma Consulting Group; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

A senior firmware leadership role for a well-funded consumer hardware company building a first-of-its-kind wearable. You will architect and own the entire firmware stack, set the engineering standards, and build the firmware team from the ground up.

You will drive RTOS choices, multi-MCU integration, and power-optimized designs while collaborating with external partners and reporting to the Head of Hardware.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of embedded firmware engineering experience for consumer electronics.
• ownership of a firmware stack on ARM Cortex-M with Zephyr and/or other RTOS environments.
• At least one consumer electronics product shipped to production under your leadership.
• Strong system-level thinking across sensing, connectivity, and compute, including wireless (BLE, Wi‑Fi) and low-power design.
• Hands-on depth in bring-up and debugging (JTAG/SWD, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes).
• Experience building and scaling a firmware team and collaborating with external hardware partners.

Responsibilities

• Architect firmware across a distributed, multi-MCU platform spanning always-on sensing, connectivity, and compute domains, owning architecture decisions.
• Stay hands-on with board bring-up, debugging, and unblock the team on first-of-its-kind challenges.
• Identify organizational needs, hire and build out the firmware team, and manage external partners while owning end-to-end firmware delivery.
• Drive SoC evaluation and tech-stack decisions across the full compute range, from bare-metal sensor hubs to multi-core SoCs.
• Establish production-grade engineering practices: build/release pipelines, device health telemetry, OTA with safe rollback, and field debug tooling.

Skills

Embedded firmware

System-level thinking

BLE/Wi‑Fi wireless

Low-power design

Debugging (JTAG/SWD)

Firmware team leadership

Tools

Zephyr RTOS

FreeRTOS

ARM Cortex-M

BLE stack

OTA updates

Job description

A well-funded consumer hardware company is hiring a Lead Firmware Engineer to architect and own the entire firmware stack for a first-of-its-kind consumer wearable. This is a foundational hire. You will define the architecture, stand up the infrastructure from scratch, and build the firmware team around you. You will report directly to the Head of Hardware in a flat, builder-first organization where leaders stay hands-on.

You are a senior technical leader who has shipped at least one consumer electronics product under your leadership and can reason at the system level across multiple compute domains. You are comfortable walking into an empty room and knowing exactly what to do next.

What you'll do

• Architect firmware across a distributed, multi-MCU platform spanning always-on sensing, connectivity, and compute domains, owning the critical calls on RTOS choice, task structure, inter-processor protocols, and power optimization.
• Stay hands-on where it counts: board bring-up, debugging, and unblocking the team on first-of-its-kind problems where no playbook exists.
• Identify organizational needs, hire and build out the firmware team, and manage external JDM and design-house partners while owning end-to-end accountability for firmware delivery.
• Drive SoC evaluation and tech-stack decisions across the full compute range, from bare-metal sensor hubs to complex multi-core SoCs with CPU, NPU, DSP, and ISP subsystems.
• Establish production-grade engineering practices: build and release pipelines, device health telemetry, OTA with safe rollback, and field debug tooling.

What we're looking for

• 10+ years of embedded firmware engineering experience for consumer electronics.
• Proven ownership of a firmware stack on ARM Cortex-M with Zephyr and/or other RTOS environments.
• At least one consumer electronics product shipped to production under your technical leadership.
• Strong system-level thinking across sensing, connectivity, and compute, including wireless (BLE, Wi‑Fi) and low‑power design.
• Hands‑on depth in bring‑up and debugging (JTAG/SWD, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes) paired with the architectural judgment to lead.
• Experience building and scaling a firmware team and collaborating with external hardware partners.

Tech environment

Zephyr RTOS, FreeRTOS, Embedded C/C++, ARM Cortex-M, BLE, Wi‑Fi, DSP, JTAG/SWD, OTA updates, multi-core SoCs (Qualcomm‑class), ESP-IDF, ThreadX, NuttX, Linux BSP, on-device AI/ML inference, camera ISP, audio DSP.

Why this role

• Founding ownership of an entire firmware stack for a genuinely new product category.
• Flat, mission‑driven team backed by top‑tier investors, moving fast toward a near‑term first product.
• Top‑of‑market compensation structured so you can focus entirely on the work.
• Direct line to the Head of Hardware and a leadership team that has shipped consumer hardware at scale.