Senior Firmware Engineer

Reflex Robotics; New York (NY); On-site; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Reflex Robotics is seeking a senior firmware engineer to own embedded systems across our humanoid robot platform, from bring-up to driver development and validation. You’ll work with hardware and software teams to ensure reliable, integrated firmware across new board designs.

Join a fast-growing startup backed by top investors to ship robust, cost-effective robotics systems that solve real industry pains. Competitive compensation and opportunities await.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional firmware or device driver development experience.
• Strong embedded systems and firmware fundamentals.
• Strong C programming skills.
• Experience developing firmware in RTOS environments.
• Strong hardware bring-up experience, reading schematics and debugging new boards.
• Experience with low-level interfaces such as I2C, SPI, UART, USB, and CAN.
• Comfortable debugging with JTAG/SWD, oscilloscopes, and logic analyzers.
• Experience developing device drivers and working with microcontrollers and peripherals.
• Strong understanding of software engineering best practices.
• Ability to work effectively across electrical, mechanical, controls, and software teams.
• BS or higher in CS/CE/EE or equivalent industry experience.

Responsibilities

• Bringing up new custom PCBs and validating processors, sensors, peripherals, and communication interfaces
• Developing device drivers and firmware features for new and existing hardware
• Debugging issues across firmware and electrical hardware
• Designing and validating communication over interfaces such as Ethernet, CAN, SPI, I2C, UART, and USB
• Characterizing, testing, and validating firmware and board designs

Skills

Firmware development

Embedded systems

C programming

RTOS

Hardware bring-up

I2C

SPI

UART

USB

CAN

JTAG/SWD debugging

Device drivers

Software engineering basics

Cross-functional collaboration

BS in CS/CE/EE or equivalent

Education

BS or higher in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field

Job description

Company Overview

Reflex Robotics builds general-purpose, AI-powered humanoid robots for the toughest jobs in industry.

We’re focused on jobs that are genuinely hard on the human body: lifting 40-pound bags of dog food, loading boxes for an entire shift, and moving heavy materials from floor to high overhead shelves. Not just lightweight tasks in controlled environments. Actual, back-breaking work.

Factory and warehouse work demands more. The hardware needs strength, reach, precision, speed, and the battery life to be useful across multiple shifts. It also needs to deliver a clear return today, not in some hypothetical future. Our robot costs $32K at development volumes today.

We build the full robot stack ourselves, from cameras and compute to actuators, electronics, and software. Our custom-built supervision stack helps handle the hard parts of deployment, from real floor variability to keeping work moving without line disruption. That supervision also generates proprietary real-world data that helps improve autonomy over time.

We are a four year old startup backed by Khosla Ventures and a team of other great investors. Our team includes alumni from Anduril, Oculus, Amazon, Waymo, Skydio, Boston Dynamics, ASML, MIT, Jane Street, and Joby Aviation.

Key Company Beliefs

• We are obsessed with shipping robots.

• A humanoid robot is only valuable if it solves a real customer problem. Cool demos are fun, but reliable work is what matters.

• Low cost is what makes widespread deployment possible.

• High-quality, proprietary robotics data is the foundation of the next generation of physical AI.

• Getting nerd-sniped by an engineering metric is way less important than solving our customers’ biggest pain points.

What We’re Looking For

We develop custom servo actuators, compute, networking, cameras, sensors, and electronics for our robots. These systems need to be performant, reliable, cost-effective, and tightly integrated with the rest of the robot.

We are looking for a firmware engineer to own embedded systems across the robot, from initial hardware bring-up through firmware development, testing, and validation. You will work directly with new board designs, read schematics, bring up peripherals, develop device drivers and firmware features, and debug problems across hardware and software.

You will work closely with electrical, mechanical, controls, and software engineers to define requirements and make sure firmware and hardware work together reliably.

Some of the problems you may work on include:

• Bringing up new custom PCBs and validating processors, sensors, peripherals, and communication interfaces

• Developing device drivers and firmware features for new and existing hardware

• Debugging issues across firmware and electrical hardware

• Designing and validating communication over interfaces such as Ethernet, CAN, SPI, I2C, UART, and USB

• Characterizing, testing, and validating firmware and board designs

We love engineers who have built systems they are genuinely proud of, whether that is a shipped product, a difficult technical project, or something they built outside of work.

Required Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional firmware or device driver development experience

• Strong embedded systems and firmware fundamentals

• Strong C programming skills

• Experience developing firmware in RTOS environments

• Strong hardware bring-up experience, including reading schematics and debugging new boards

• Experience with low-level interfaces such as I2C, SPI, UART, USB, and CAN

• Comfortable debugging with JTAG/SWD, oscilloscopes, and logic analyzers

• Experience developing device drivers and working with microcontrollers and peripherals

• Strong understanding of software engineering best practices

• Ability to work effectively across electrical, mechanical, controls, and software teams

• BS or higher in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience

Bonus Qualifications

• Familiarity with compilers and toolchains targeting ARM Cortex architectures

• Experience with Python or other scripting languages

• Experience with configuration and release management, continuous integration, unit testing, and regression testing

• Familiarity with time synchronization between devices

• Experience with Ethernet and TCP/IP protocols

• Signal processing experience

• Robotics experience

Compensation: $200,000–$250,000, depending on experience, skills, and qualifications.

Come Join Us

Reflex is de-risked enough to see the hazy outlines of success, but still small enough that there’s enormous upside for grabs. This is a rare opportunity to help build a flagship robotics company from the ground up and to do work that will truly matter, reshaping what people believe is possible in robotics.

We love to see the things you’ve worked on. Have a portfolio or a project that people tend to say 'wait, you built that?' when you describe what you worked on? Share it. We’re looking for people who push past the status quo, are passionate at work and in their own time, we’re looking for people who want to win.