Senior Embedded Software Engineer New US - Remote

Glydways; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Glydways is seeking a Senior Embedded Software Engineer to own critical firmware domains for safety-critical vehicle systems. You will lead cross-functional projects and shape the embedded platform, ensuring reliability as a core safety requirement.

You will design, prototype, test, and optimize production firmware for RTOS environments, and mentor other engineers while partnering with hardware teams to bring new sensors and compute platforms from prototype to production.

Qualifications

• Expert-level C/C++ for embedded systems.
• Experience with RTOS environments and safety-critical firmware development.
• Familiarity with MCU bootloaders and device drivers for new boards/SoCs.
• Knowledge of communication protocols (SPI, UART, I2C, CAN, TCP/UDP).
• Experience deploying firmware to multi-device systems with fault tolerance.

Responsibilities

• Design, prototype, build, and test production vehicle firmware for safety-critical systems.
• Develop and optimize applications in RTOS environments for reliability and performance.
• Own and evolve communication architectures between MCUs, sensors, and main compute.
• Lead bring-up and debugging for new boards/SoCs with engineers across teams.
• Define and build automated testing frameworks and harnesses at multiple levels.
• Mentor embedded engineers and help set engineering standards across the team.

Skills

C/C++ (embedded)

RTOS experience

Communication protocols

SoC/board bring-up

Safety-critical firmware

Tools

Bootloaders

Device drivers

Debugging tools

CAN tooling

Job description

Glydways is reimagining what public transit can be. We believe that mobility is the gateway to opportunity—connecting people to housing, education, employment, commerce, and care. By making transportation more accessible, affordable, and sustainable, we empower communities to thrive and unlock economic and social prosperity.

Our mission is to revolutionize transit with a solution that delivers high capacity, exceptional user experiences, unmatched affordability, and minimal environmental impact.

The Glydways system is a groundbreaking network of carbon-neutral, interconnected transit pathways powered by standardized autonomous vehicles on dedicated roadways. Operating 24/7 with on-demand access, it offers personalized and efficient mobility—without the burden of heavy upfront infrastructure costs or ongoing taxpayer subsidies.

With Glydways, we’re building more than a transportation system; we’re creating a future where everyone, everywhere, has the freedom to move.

Meet the team:

The Embedded Software team is where the vehicle comes to life. We write and load the firmware that turns raw hardware—sensor kits, custom boards, and main compute—into a reliable, safety-critical machine. Because our software touches nearly every subsystem, we collaborate with engineers from across the company and get hands-on with the newest hardware in the building.

About the Role:

As aSenior Embedded Software Engineer, you will own critical firmware domains, lead complex cross-functional projects, and help shape our embedded platform and engineering best practices. This is firmware that carries real passengers - on a Glydways vehicle, reliability is a safety requirement, not just a performance goal, and the code you ship is part of the safety case.

• Design, prototype, build, and test production vehicle firmware for safety-critical systems.
• Develop and optimize applications in RTOS environments, tuning for reliability, latency, throughput, memory footprint, and power on resource-constrained platforms.
• Own and evolve the communication architecture between MCUs, sensors, and main compute, across both standard and custom protocols (SPI, UART, I2C, CAN, TCP/UDP, and more).
• Lead bring-up and debugging for new boards and SoCs—bootloaders, drivers, and low-level diagnostics—partnering with electrical engineers and software developers to take new sensor and compute platforms from prototype to production.
• Define and build automated testing frameworks and harnesses at the unit, integration, and system levels alongside test and platform engineers.
• Mentor other embedded engineers, give thorough code reviews, and help set engineering standards, tools, and best practices across the team.

*If you’re excited about this work but don’t check every box, we’d still love to hear from you. We know the best candidates don’t always match every line of a job description.

Glydways provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Core technical skills

• Expert-level C and/or C++ for embedded systems; additional languages and tooling are a plus.
• Strong command of communication protocols, from low level (SPI, UART, I2C, CAN) to higher level (TCP/UDP).
• Experience developing on RTOS environments (e.g., PX5 or other POSIX/pthreads-based real-time OSes such as embedded Linux with pthreads, QNX, VxWorks, or RTEMS).
• Experience with MCU bootloaders, device drivers, and new board or SoC bring-up.
• Experience deploying firmware to multi-device systems or vehicles in a power-safe, fault-tolerant way.
• Demonstrated speed and size optimization for resource-constrained platforms.

Process and quality

• Experience with safety-critical systems and processes (e.g., ISO 26262 or similar standards) is highly valued.
• Solid understanding of the embedded software development life cycle—version control, code review, CI, and automated testing.

Nice to have

• Experience in automotive and/or transit domains.
• Experience with automotive-grade safety MCUs — ideally the NXP S32K3 family, or comparable lockstep/ASIL-rated parts (e.g., Infineon AURIX, TI TMS570).
• Familiarity with kernel internals and low-level OS concepts.
• Experience with deterministic timing and networking, such as NTP, PTP, or time-sensitive networking (TSN).
• Experience with CAN tooling and DBC-based workflows.
• Comfort with electronics test equipment and hardware debugging (multimeters, oscilloscopes, power supplies, etc.).
• Scripting experience (e.g., Python) for test automation and tooling.
  Typical experience
  • Typically 7+ years developing embedded software for production systems, including substantial work on safety-critical or highly reliable platforms (automotive, aerospace, medical, industrial, robotics, etc.).

  Voluntary Self-Identification

  For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

  As set forth in Glydways’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

  If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

  A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

  A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

  An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

  An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.