Senior/Principal Firmware Engineer – Optical Transceivers (On-site)

Polaris Electro-Optics, Inc.; Carlsbad (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Polaris Electro-Optics, a rapidly growing photonics company in California, seeks a Senior or Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer to develop control firmware for next‑gen optical interconnect platforms.

You will own MCU‑based control, configuration, telemetry, calibration, and host interfaces, working closely with hardware, photonics, and systems teams to bring complex electro‑optical hardware to stable operation and repeatable testing.

Qualifications

• B.S. or M.S. in Electrical/Computer Engineering or related field.
• Strong embedded C/C++ experience.
• Hands-on CMIS-based optical module management experience.
• Experience with ARM Cortex-M family.
• Proficient with SPI, I2C, UART, USB, GPIO and related peripherals.
• Experience in board bring-up and hardware/firmware debugging.

Responsibilities

• Develop embedded firmware for MCU-based board bring-up, device configuration, telemetry, calibration, and hardware control.
• Implement MCU control of ADCs, DACs, regulators, temperature sensors, MZM heaters, drivers, TIAs, and other peripheral devices.
• Own CMIS-based module management including state-machine behavior, configuration, telemetry, alarms, control functions, and host management interfaces.
• Develop SPI, I2C, UART, USB, GPIO, and related low-level device drivers.
• Develop calibration and initialization routines for optical and electrical hardware.
• Support MZM bias/heater calibration, monitor photodiode acquisition, driver/TIA configuration, and telemetry collection.
• Work with systems engineers to expose appropriate control and diagnostic functionality for system bring-up and automated testing.
• Debug firmware/hardware interactions in the lab.
• Develop logging, diagnostics, fault reporting, and firmware update mechanisms.
• Establish firmware release, versioning, regression-test, and CI practices to support repeatable development and qualification.

Skills

Embedded C/C++

ARM Cortex-M

CMIS-based module management

SPI, I2C, UART, USB, GPIO

Board bring-up & hardware/firmware

Telemetry and calibration workflows

Education

BS in Electrical/Computer Engineering

MS preferred

Job description

Polaris Electro-Optics is a rapidly growing photonics company developing breakthrough

optical interconnect technology for data centers, AI, and high-performance computing.

Their proprietary FenGlass platform integrates ferroelectric nematic materials into silicon

photonics, enabling faster, compact, and more energy-efficient solutions. Located in San

Diego and backed by substantial funding, Polaris is scaling to meet demand from hyperscale

customers and transceiver suppliers.

Role Summary

We are looking for a Senior or Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer to develop the control firmware and software infrastructure supporting our next-generation optical interconnect platforms and evaluation systems.

This is a hands-on role focused on MCU-based control, device configuration, telemetry, calibration support, power sequencing, hardware bring-up, and host interfaces. The engineer will work closely with mixed-signal hardware, high-speed hardware, photonics, and systems teams to bring complex electro-optical hardware to stable and repeatable operation.

Responsibilities

• Develop embedded firmware for board bring-up, device configuration, telemetry, calibration, and hardware control.
• Implement MCU-based control of ADCs, DACs, regulators, temperature sensors, MZM heaters, drivers, TIAs, and other peripheral devices.
• Own implementation and maintenance of CMIS-based module management, including state-machine behavior, configuration, telemetry, alarms, control functions, and host management interfaces.
• Develop SPI, I2C, UART, USB, GPIO, and related low-level device drivers.
• Develop calibration and initialization routines for optical and electrical hardware.
• Support MZM bias/heater calibration, monitor photodiode acquisition, driver/TIA configuration, and telemetry collection.
• Work with systems engineers to expose appropriate control and diagnostic functionality for system bring-up and automated testing.
• Debug firmware/hardware interactions in the lab.
• Develop logging, diagnostics, fault reporting, and firmware update mechanisms.
• Establish firmware release, versioning, regression-test, and CI practices to support repeatable development and qualification.
• Maintain firmware architecture, source control, documentation, and release processes.
• Support integration with higher-level test automation and system-control software.

Qualifications

• B.S. or M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.
• Strong embedded C/C++ experience.
• Hands-on experience with CMIS-based optical module management, including module state control, telemetry, configuration, and firmware interfaces.
• Experience with ARM Cortex-M or similar embedded processors.
• Strong understanding of SPI, I2C, UART, USB, GPIO, interrupts, timers, ADCs, DACs, and peripheral interfaces.
• Experience with board bring-up and hardware/firmware debug.
• Ability to read schematics and work directly with hardware engineers during bring-up.
• Experience implementing power sequencing, telemetry, fault handling, and device configuration.
• Comfortable working in a laboratory environment with first-generation hardware.

Preferred

• Experience with optical transceivers, photonics, datacom, or high-speed communications systems.
• Experience implementing and validating CMIS across multiple optical transceiver platforms or product generations.
• Experience developing calibration and control firmware for analog or mixed-signal hardware.
• Familiarity with Python or another scripting language for firmware test and automation.
• Experience with bootloaders, firmware update mechanisms, manufacturing tests, or field diagnostics.