Senior Embedded Firmware Engineer

Brewbird; San Carlos (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Healthcare

401k

Flexible PTO

Commuter stipend

Job summary

BrewBird in San Carlos, CA, seeks a Senior Embedded Firmware Engineer to own and ship reliable firmware for resource-constrained MCUs in a connected commercial coffee brewer platform.

The role spans hardware and software hands-on work across the stack, with a focus on real-world reliability, PID control, and robust firmware delivery. In-office, full-time, engineering-driven environment with equity and benefits.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of production embedded firmware in C/C++ on resource-constrained MCUs
• Deep ARM Cortex-M experience; STM32 or ESP32 a strong plus
• Experience with distributed embedded systems involving multiple MCUs communicating over wired buses (RS-485, CAN, RS-422)
• Strong understanding of bus arbitration, timeouts, retry behavior, degraded operation, and cross-board debugging
• Low-level driver development from datasheets (PWM, DMA, SPI, I2C, UART, ADCs)
• Closed-loop control experience with real hardware (e.g., PID)
• Build systems experience (CMake, GNU Make)
• Strong ownership, ability to navigate ambiguity, and drive firmware problems to resolution
• Use of AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code) in hardware-verified workflows

Responsibilities

• Ship embedded firmware for production hardware with real-world reliability improvements
• Debug field issues under pressure and optimize platform performance
• Collaborate with hardware, firmware, and product teams to deliver a robust coffee platform
• Own firmware components and contribute to architectural decisions

Job description

Senior Embedded Firmware Engineer

San Carlos, CA

Engineering

In office

Full-time

Connected Commercial Coffee Brewer Platform

What We're About

At BrewBird, we believe in building a sustainable future in coffee. We're developing a technology platform to scale the $100 billion specialty coffee market, while working with top local and national roasters to bring the highest quality cup of coffee to every home and office. BrewBird is backed by some of the world’s best venture funds. We're a passionate team of builders who use technology to craft elegant and delightful solutions to challenging real world problems.

Role Overview

This role sits at the intersection of AI, robotics, consumer hardware, IoT, and specialty coffee. You'll work hands-on across the stack to build machines that operate reliably in the real world while delivering an exceptional coffee experience at scale. The ideal candidate has shipped real embedded products, seen them fail in the field, debugged them under pressure, and improved the platform as a result.

If you enjoy building elegant systems, solving messy real-world problems, and working closely with a highly hands-on engineering team to bring ambitious hardware products to life, we'd love to talk.

Required Experience:

• 5+ years of production embedded firmware experience in C or C++ on resource-constrained microcontrollers. Experience shipping at least one product that operated in the field long enough to expose real reliability issues. Deep ARM Cortex-M experience; STM32 or ESP32 experience is a strong plus.
• Comfort with linker scripts, startup code, memory layout, interrupts, fault handling, core dumps, MPU/cache configuration, and low-level debugging.
• Experience with distributed embedded systems involving multiple MCUs communicating over wired buses such as RS-485, CAN, RS-422, or similar.
• Strong understanding of bus arbitration, timeouts, retry behavior, degraded operation, and debugging failures that may originate across multiple boards.
• Low-level driver development from datasheets, including timing-sensitive peripherals such as PWM, DMA, capture/compare, quadrature decoding, SPI, I²C, UART, and ADCs.
• Closed-loop control experience with real hardware, such as PID control...etc.
• Build system experience across CMake, GNU Make, or similar toolchains.
• Strong ownership instincts, comfort with ambiguity, and a track record of driving difficult firmware problems to resolution.
• Use AI-assisted development tools, including agents such as Claude Code, as part of a disciplined hardware-verified firmware workflow.

Nice to have experiences

• Multi-board hardware bring-up on a product that did not exist before, including schematic review, first power-on, sensor characterization, and EVT/DVT/PVT cycles.
• Production experience with Zephyr. For Zephyr, familiarity with Kconfig, device tree, overlays, CMake/West, and driver models.
• Firmware experience in coffee, espresso, commercial appliances, HVAC, dishwashers, 3D printers, lab automation, pumps, robotics, or other systems involving thermal, fluidic, and motion control.
• Experience with mains-AC products, including phase control, zero-cross detection, isolation requirements, and safety certifications such as UL, ETL, or IEC 60335.
• Cellular IoT or connected-device fleet experience, including OTA rollouts, remote diagnostics, and modem integration. Blues Wireless Notecard experience is a plus.
• Filesystem or nonvolatile storage experience in firmware, such as LittleFS, FATFS, NVS, settings APIs, or calibration persistence.
• USB device stack experience.
• Embedded signal-processing experience, including filters, FFT-based detection, or sensor fusion. State-machine architecture experience, including hierarchical state machines or frameworks such as Zephyr SMF, QP/QM, Boost.MSM, or equivalent hand-rolled systems.
• Crash-dump postmortem experience, including turning fault registers, stack traces, and field logs into actionable fixes.

Our core values

We operate with a spirit of generosity. We go the extra mile to act in ways that allow others to experience happiness, success and fulfillment - in big ways and small. We believe acting and communicating openly, honestly and generously is a virtuous cycle.

We do the work that truly matters. There's so much we can do, and so we ruthlessly focus on the things that allow us to have the most impact. To us, results matter more than hours worked or time spent. We protect our time and are considerate of the time of others so that we can all be at our best in work and life.

We believe in joining forces. We bring people with different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives together to accomplish far more than we ever could alone. When we don't know something, we ask. We believe in supporting each other and ultimately hold ourselves accountable to each person that makes up the Brewbird whole - our customers, roasting partners, employees and more.

We prove bold ambition and integrity can co-exist. We're in it for the long haul. We set big, audacious goals - ones that make our hearts proud - and take the responsibility that comes with them seriously. We're honest with ourselves and others about where we are and what we're working on. We keep on keeping on with persistence and seek to master the art of resilience along the way.

We cultivate joy, together. For us, coffee is ultimately about feeling good. And, we believe the best things in life are experienced together. We're motivated by genuine human interaction. Work and productivity have their time and important place, yet we're not "nothing but business" kind of people. We believe in bringing people together to celebrate life's moments - big and small.

Benefits

At BrewBird, we put our people first. In addition to a competitive compensation package with meaningful early stage equity, we provide our employees with flexible paid time off to relax and recharge. We also offer a generous employer paid healthcare coverage, 401k plan, flexible work environment, and a commuter stipend for mass transit or parking.

Brewbird is an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, and encourage all qualified applicants to apply.

Compensation

The base pay range for this role is $150,000 - $200,000 per year.