Remote Firmware Engineer - FPGA/Embedded Systems Expert

Mercor; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 138,000 - 165,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercor, headquartered in San Francisco, seeks Software & Firmware Engineering Experts for a contract remote role with compensation $100–$120/hour. You will work on software, firmware, and digital hardware for real physical systems across embedded platforms.

Responsibilities include reviewing embedded firmware, FPGA/RTL designs, flight software, and test frameworks; evaluating hardware interfaces and real-time trade-offs. Strong C/C++, Python, RTOS, and FPGA tooling are required.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience in software, firmware, FPGA, or embedded systems engineering.
• At least 3 years of recent hands-on experience with real hardware.
• Experience as the responsible engineer for production hardware-connected software or firmware.
• Deep expertise in embedded firmware, FPGA/RTL design, flight software, or hardware test automation.
• Strong command of C/C++, Python, RTOS, embedded Linux, and FPGA toolchains.
• Extensive experience debugging software-hardware interactions using tools like JTAG/SWD debuggers and oscilloscopes.
• Proven experience in real-world product or hardware manufacturing environments.

Responsibilities

• Apply hands-on expertise in software, firmware, and digital hardware to complex engineering tasks involving real physical systems.
• Review and evaluate embedded firmware, FPGA/RTL designs, flight software, test automation frameworks, and hardware interfaces.
• Analyze architecture and implementation trade-offs involving real-time performance, timing, memory, and hardware/software integration.
• Assess technical correctness, robustness, and feasibility of solutions for embedded and hardware-connected systems.
• Identify implementation errors, race conditions, interface failures, and other system-level failure modes.
• Develop or review engineering problems, reference implementations, test cases, and technical documentation.

Skills

C/C++

Python

RTOS

Embedded Linux

FPGA toolchains

JTAG/SWD

Real hardware

Hardware debugging

Tools

Oscilloscopes

JTAG/SWD debuggers

FPGA RTL design

Job description

Mercor, headquartered in San Francisco, seeks Software & Firmware Engineering Experts for a contract remote role with compensation $100–$120/hour. You will work on software, firmware, and digital hardware for real physical systems across embedded platforms.

Responsibilities include reviewing embedded firmware, FPGA/RTL designs, flight software, and test frameworks; evaluating hardware interfaces and real-time trade-offs. Strong C/C++, Python, RTOS, and FPGA tooling are required.