Senior Staff Firmware Engineer

Quintessent Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Quintessent Inc. is building a laser platform powering AI infrastructure and enabling scalable optical interconnects.

We seek a senior firmware design engineer to own firmware for next-generation pluggable interconnects, collaborating with circuit, system, and board designers to define requirements and deliver production firmware. You will code in C and Python, work with RTL/DV teams, and shape diagnostics and mission-mode monitoring for data-center applications.

Qualifications

• Must have created firmware for production devices.
• Hands-on coding in C and Python for production firmware.
• Experience with DSP-based compensation, SerDes, or related subsystems is key.

Responsibilities

• Build firmware for next generation pluggable optical interconnects and define uC requirements with hardware/design teams.
• Perform firmware testing, production releases, and diagnostics/monitoring for data-center applications.
• Collaborate with RTL and DV designers to validate firmware with system architecture.

Skills

Firmware development

C programming

Python programming

DSP/SerDes experience

Education

B.S./M.S. in Electrical Engineering or Computer Science

Job description

Build the laser platform that powers the next generation of AI infrastructure.

Quintessent is taking on some of the hardest challenges in optical connectivity – directly

attacking the foundational bottlenecks limiting the scalability and reliability of next-generation AI

and computing infrastructure. Our team has trailblazed pioneering work in quantum dot lasers

and amplifiers, heterogeneous integration, and multi-wavelength silicon photonics. We are

converging innovations in materials science, process integration, chip and system design to

build products that we believe will form a core part of AI networking systems.

We are a scrappy, high-trust team that takes ownership, stays humble, and believes in tackling

hard problems with speed, intellectual honesty, and relentless improvement. We hold ourselves

to a high bar, start from a deep understanding of our customers’ problems, and win or lose

together. If this sounds like you, and you want to build the laser and electronics platform that powers the next generation of AI infrastructure, we’d love to talk.

We are looking for a senior, hands-on firmware design engineer to build the next generation pluggable optical interconnects for Scale-Up and Scale-Out Data Center Interconnect Products

You will be the technical authority developing firmware for products, responsible for:

Build firmware for next generation pluggable optical interconnects. Work closely with circuit, system, and board designers, to develop the uC requirements and associated firmware. Firmware testing, production release, and mission mode diagnostics monitoring.

Your work will directly shape the products that ship and the capabilities the company builds.

To succeed, you will need these qualifications:

• B.S. or M.S. in Electrical engineering and/ or Computer science
• Must have created firmware for production devices.
• Firmware expertise in one of these designs: DSP based compensation, SerDes, consumer device, automotive design, Analog/RF, CPU/GPU sub-systems are critical.
• Ability to develop firmware from early architecture documents and /or block diagram to production level firmware release. Experience in pluggable optics is an asset.
• Hands on coding at C and Python is critical for implementation. Developing the microcontroller requirements for architecture and developing firmware for the data center diagnostics and mission-mode monitoring.
• Ability to work with RTL and DV designers to validate the design is essential.

Bonus if you’ve also:

• Worked directly with customers or partners

For more questions or to apply for the position, contact: [e-mail]