Senior Firmware Engineer

Colossus Technologies Group; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Colossus Technologies Group in San Francisco is seeking a Senior Firmware Engineer to design, build, and scale firmware for connected hardware products, working close to the hardware and shipping reliable software across large device deployments.

You’ll own low-level C/C++ firmware, develop drivers for sensors and peripherals, validate UART/I2C/SPI/USB interfaces, and collaborate with hardware engineers from bring-up to production readiness and OTA updates.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software-engineering experience with substantial hands-on firmware or embedded-systems development.
• Strong C and/or C++ programming skills for embedded or low-level systems.
• Experience developing firmware for constrained devices, including memory-sensitive and compute-limited systems.
• Background writing peripheral drivers and working directly with hardware interfaces.
• Strong understanding of serial and device communication protocols, such as UART, I2C, SPI, and USB.
• Experience with DMA, interrupt-driven programming, timing-sensitive code, and low-level debugging.
• Ability to read and work from hardware schematics, datasheets, and board-level design documentation.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test, and maintain production firmware for resource-constrained embedded devices.
• Build low-level software in C/C++ for systems with limited memory, processing capacity, and power budgets.
• Develop and integrate drivers for sensors, peripherals, and external components.
• Implement and troubleshoot communication interfaces and protocols, including UART, I2C, SPI, USB, and wireless connectivity.
• Work with hardware engineers during board bring-up, validation, root-cause analysis, and production readiness.
• Analyze schematics, component documentation, and board-level behavior to diagnose complex firmware and hardware interactions.
• Develop software for bare-metal and lightweight task-management environments, including systems that do not rely on a conventional RTOS.
• Support wireless features involving Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and related connected-device capabilities.

Job description

We’re hiring a Senior Firmware Engineer to help build and scale connected hardware products at a rapidly growing, late-stage technology company. This is a hands-on role for an engineer who enjoys working close to the hardware, solving difficult system-level problems, and shipping reliable software across large device deployments.

You’ll join a high-ownership engineering environment where firmware directly affects product performance, reliability, manufacturing, and the end-user experience. The ideal candidate brings strong embedded C/C++ depth, practical hardware-debugging skills, and experience supporting deployed connected devices through the full product lifecycle.

What You’ll Do

• Design, develop, test, and maintain production firmware for resource-constrained embedded devices.
• Build low-level software in C/C++ for systems with limited memory, processing capacity, and power budgets.
• Develop and integrate drivers for sensors, peripherals, and external components.
• Implement and troubleshoot communication interfaces and protocols, including UART, I2C, SPI, USB, and wireless connectivity.
• Work with hardware engineers during board bring-up, validation, root-cause analysis, and production readiness.
• Analyze schematics, component documentation, and board-level behavior to diagnose complex firmware and hardware interactions.
• Develop software for bare-metal and lightweight task-management environments, including systems that do not rely on a conventional RTOS.
• Support wireless features involving Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and related connected-device capabilities.

What You’ll Bring

• 5+ years of professional software-engineering experience, with substantial hands-on firmware or embedded-systems development experience.
• Strong C and/or C++ programming skills for embedded or low-level systems.
• Experience developing firmware for constrained devices, including memory-sensitive and compute-limited systems.
• Background writing peripheral drivers and working directly with hardware interfaces.
• Strong understanding of serial and device communication protocols, such as UART, I2C, SPI, and USB.
• Experience with DMA, interrupt-driven programming, timing-sensitive code, and low-level debugging.
• Ability to read and work from hardware schematics, datasheets, and board-level design documentation.

Nice to Have

• Experience deploying and maintaining firmware across a large installed base of physical devices.
• Experience with over-the-air firmware updates, remote troubleshooting, device telemetry, and fleet-health monitoring.
• Exposure to cloud-connected IoT systems and the backend services that support device provisioning, monitoring, and updates.
• Experience supporting hardware from early prototype stages through manufacturing and field deployment.
• Background working in a high-growth startup, consumer hardware, robotics, IoT, mobility, industrial systems, or another connected-device environment.

Why This Role

This is an opportunity to have meaningful ownership over firmware that ships in real products and operates at scale. You’ll work with a strong cross-functional engineering team, take on technically challenging problems across hardware and software, and help shape the systems and practices that support a rapidly expanding product footprint.