Senior CPU Firmware Architect – Bring-Up, Security & Debug

AheadComputing, Inc.; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Growth opportunities

Startup environment

Collaboration with engineers

Job summary

AheadComputing, Inc. seeks a Senior Firmware Design Engineer to architect, develop, and maintain low-level firmware for RISC-V CPUs. You will define HALs, work on bootloaders, and collaborate with HW teams on CSRs and memory-mapped I/O.

You’ll validate firmware in pre-silicon and post-silicon contexts and implement security features like secure boot and root-of-trust. Responsibilities include DRAM training, platform bring-up, and working with OpenOCD/Lauterbach for debugging in a fast-moving

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical/Computer Engineering or related field plus 3 years of post-baccalaureate experience.
• Develop low-level device drivers and firmware for SoC/CPU/GPU emulation in C/C++ for pre-silicon environments.
• Experience with RISC-based assembly and verification.
• Experience with memory-mapped I/O peripheral configuration and DRAM initialization.
• Knowledge of software build systems (Make, CMake) and code versioning (Git or Perforce).
• Document infrastructure firmware decisions and collaborate with HW teams.

Responsibilities

• Architect, develop, and maintain low-level firmware and drivers for RISC-V platforms.
• Define HAL interfaces and initialization sequencing for novel CPU designs.
• Write production firmware for CPU bring-up, power management, and diagnostics.
• Collaborate with CPU architecture and RTL teams on CSRs and memory-mapped I/O.
• Design bootloaders and platform bring-up, including DRAM training and UEFI/U-Boot where applicable.
• Develop firmware for hardware verification, RTL simulation, and FPGA emulation.
• Implement security features such as secure boot and hardware root-of-trust.

Skills

Firmware in C/C++

RISC-V

Bootloader

GDB/OpenOCD

Memory-mapped I/O

Version control (Git/Perforce)

Pre-silicon verification

Education

Bachelor's degree in EE/CE/CS

Tools

OpenOCD

Lauterbach

GDB

JTAG

U-Boot

Job description

AheadComputing, Inc. seeks a Senior Firmware Design Engineer to architect, develop, and maintain low-level firmware for RISC-V CPUs. You will define HALs, work on bootloaders, and collaborate with HW teams on CSRs and memory-mapped I/O.

You’ll validate firmware in pre-silicon and post-silicon contexts and implement security features like secure boot and root-of-trust. Responsibilities include DRAM training, platform bring-up, and working with OpenOCD/Lauterbach for debugging in a fast-moving