Senior Embedded Systems Engineer – Real-Time Control

Alicat Scientific; Tucson (AZ); On-site; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Alicat Scientific in Tucson designs high-performance flow and pressure instrumentation and firmware, enabling full concept-to-production visibility at our integrated facility. You will develop robust embedded software, build control systems, and implement drivers for sensors and communication protocols.

Join a collaborative team that values ownership, rapid decisions, and real hardware bring-up. This role combines firmware development with system-level thinking in a dynamic product environment

Qualifications

• 6-10 years of embedded software development in C on resource-constrained microcontrollers.
• BS in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field is valued – but demonstrated experience matters more.
• Strong grounding in real-time systems: interrupt-driven design, memory management, deterministic timing, and RTOS-based or well-structured bare-metal architectures.
• Track record of owning embedded software modules from design through production release.
• Hardware bring-up and debugging experience at the electrical interface level.
• Proficiency with embedded toolchains (debuggers, cross-compilers, build systems, Git), automated testing, and static analysis.
• Experience developing with AI-assisted tools (code assistants, AI-supported testing and review) is desired.
• Experience with embedded Linux or Python tooling is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement embedded software in C for our flow and pressure instruments.
• Develop control systems, including PID loops, filtering algorithms and calibration routines.
• Implement hardware abstraction layers and drivers for ADCs, DACs, timers, PWM, DMA, EEPROM/Flash, and sensor interfaces.
• Design and maintain communication stacks over UART, SPI, I2C, USB, RS232/RS485, and CAN, including Modbus, CANopen, EtherNet/IP, and IO-Link.
• Develop bootloaders, firmware update strategies, device configuration, diagnostic, and logging services.
• Debug at the register and hardware level using JTAG/SWD, oscilloscopes, and logic analyzers.
• Expand automated unit, integration, and hardware-in-the-loop testing; strengthen CI/CD.
• Support manufacturing test integration and field diagnostics.
• Contribute to system architecture and design across firmware, electrical, and application software.
• Participate in new product development planning and design reviews.
• Help improve coding standards, code review practices, and release workflows.
• Help translate product and application requirements into workable technical scope with Product Management and Applications Engineering.

Skills

Embedded C

RTOS

Real-time systems

Hardware bring-up

Debugging

CI/CD

AI-assisted tooling

Python

Education

BS in Computer/Electrical Engineering or CS

Tools

GCC cross-compiler

GDB

JTAG/SWD

Git

CI/CD pipelines

Linux

Embedded Linux

Job description

Alicat Scientific in Tucson designs high-performance flow and pressure instrumentation and firmware, enabling full concept-to-production visibility at our integrated facility. You will develop robust embedded software, build control systems, and implement drivers for sensors and communication protocols.

Join a collaborative team that values ownership, rapid decisions, and real hardware bring-up. This role combines firmware development with system-level thinking in a dynamic product environment