Staff Embedded Platform Engineer

Ford Motor Company; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 284,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

Dental coverage

Vision coverage

Tuition assistance

Employee discounts

Job summary

Ford Motor Company is seeking a Platform Firmware Engineer to own core firmware for a distributed multi-MCU system running Zephyr RTOS. You will design reusable drivers and services, build test infrastructure, and ensure reliability with watchdog, PLCA, PTP, and robust serial protocols.

You will bring up hardware, verify silicon with debugging tools, and collaborate across teams to enable scalable, power-aware configurations for automotive applications.

Qualifications

• Design and implement reusable platform software for a multi-MCU embedded system.
• Architect and implement device reliability infrastructure (watchdog, supervision, fault reporting).
• Own real-time Ethernet/PLCA/IEEE 1588/PTP with UDP transport for reliable networks.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement reusable platform software across a multi-MCU distributed system.
• Architect and implement device reliability infrastructure with watchdog and supervision.
• Own RT Ethernet, including 10BASE-T1S, time sync, and UDP transport.
• Develop and maintain custom serial protocols over UART/I2C/SPI for MCU exchanges.
• Specify and test bare-metal and RTOS firmware with drivers and DT integration.
• Build component test infrastructure (unit/integration/HIL) for drivers and libraries.
• Bring up hardware and verify software against silicon with debugging tools.
• Define system power, compute, and comms requirements for multiple configurations.
• Profile power, CPU, and bus usage to drive optimizations.
• Collaborate with verification/validation to build test plans and validate firmware.

Skills

Embedded software

C programming

Debugging/hardware bring-up

Team collaboration

Technical leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering / Computer Science

Tools

Zephyr RTOS

JTAG/SWD

Build tools (CMake, Bazel, SCons)

Twister

Job description

You will own core platform firmware for a distributed embedded system of multiple microcontrollers, building reusable drivers, services, and test infrastructure on Zephyr RTOS. This is a platform-facing role. You'll close real gaps across the stack, from standing up a device watchdog/supervision design, to building driver test suites for our automotive Ethernet PHY driver, to hardening real-time Ethernet and custom serial protocols, so application teams can build on a stable, scalable foundation.

What you'll do...

• Design and implement reusable platform software across a multi-MCU distributed embedded system, favoring clean driver/service abstractions and portable component interfaces over app-specific one-offs.
• Architect and implement device reliability infrastructure from the ground up, including watchdog and task-supervision design (feeding strategy, timeout policy, fault capture, and recovery/reset-reason reporting).
• Own real-time Ethernet communication, including 10BASE-T1S with PLCA, IEEE 1588/PTP time synchronization, and UDP transport, and tune it for reliability under bandwidth-constrained, congested networks (including interaction with over-the-air updates).
• Develop and maintain custom serial protocols over UART, I2C, and SPI (e.g. multi-device I2C command/streaming protocols with CRC/PEC integrity, firmware-update windowing, and robust error handling) for reliable exchange between MCUs and external components.
• Specify, design, implement, and test both bare-metal and RTOS low-level firmware, including device drivers, HAL abstractions, and Kconfig/devicetree integration for a scalable, multi-board platform.
• Build component test infrastructure: author unit/integration test suites (e.g. Twister, emulators/mocks, hardware-in-the-loop) for drivers and libraries that today lack coverage, and drive maturity, stability, and release-readiness metrics.
• Resolve ambiguity in requirements, specifications, and hardware/vendor documentation, and turn open items into concrete, testable designs.
• Bring up hardware and debug at bench and hardware-in-the-loop level using logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and JTAG/SWD debuggers to verify software against silicon.
• Define and implement system-level power, compute, and communication requirements, enabling different applications to select different capability/configuration combinations (including low-power modes).
• Profile power, CPU, and bus utilization at the submodule and system level and drive optimizations.
• Collaborate with verification and validation teams to build comprehensive test plans and validate firmware functionality, stability, and performance across operating and low-power conditions.
• Interface with external silicon/module vendors: review firmware/register specifications, provide design guidance, and integrate and validate vendor code releases.
• Maintain clear, concise documentation of design decisions, driver/service APIs, and firmware architecture.
• Replace temporary or placeholder subsystems with long-term, maintainable architectures.

You'll have...

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or Computer Engineering (or equivalent experience).
• 10+ years of relevant embedded development experience in C.
• Hands-on experience in both bare-metal and RTOS environments.
• Experience authoring and maintaining automated firmware test suites (unit, integration, and hardware-in-the-loop).
• Experience with issue-tracking and documentation tools (e.g. JIRA/Confluence or equivalent) for tracking requirements, tasks, and results.
• Knowledge of electrical engineering fundamentals, including circuit analysis and design.

Even better, you may have...

• Zephyr RTOS experience (devicetree, Kconfig, Twister, driver model, west), strongly preferred.
• Experience developing and testing networking drivers/stacks, especially automotive/industrial Ethernet (10BASE-T1S, PLCA, MAC-PHY interfaces, PTP/time synchronization).
• Experience designing watchdog, fault-handling, and safe-recovery mechanisms on resource-constrained MCUs.
• Deep experience with UART/I2C/SPI protocol design and debugging (CRC/PEC, framing, retry/backoff, bus contention).
• Experience integrating vendor source code and silicon, and reviewing register-level specifications.
• Experience with build tooling such as CMake, Bazel, SCons, west.
• Proficiency scripting test and automation tooling in Python.
• Familiarity with security-adjacent firmware concerns (secure boot, credential storage, diagnostics such as UDS/DoIP).
• Strong software fundamentals (design, maintainability, code review) and hands-on hardware bring-up, system debugging, and code optimization.
• Collaborative mindset with strong written and verbal communication, and genuine interest in partnering with vendors to integrate new technology.

As an established global company, we offer the benefit of choice. You can choose what your Ford future will look like: will your story span the globe, or keep you close to home? Will your career be a deep dive into what you love, or a series of new teams and new skills? Will you be a leader, a changemaker, a technical expert, a culture builder…or all of the above? No matter what you choose, we offer a work life that works for you, including:

• Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
• Tuition assistance
• Established and active employee resource groups
• Paid time off for individual and team community service
• A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.

This position is a leadership level 6 and ranges from $150,200-$283,500.

Final determination of salary grade will be based on candidate's skills and experience, and base salary will be set within the applicable range according to job scope, responsibility and competitive market value.

Visa sponsorship is available for this position.

Candidates for positions with Ford Motor Company must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, age, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status or protected veteran status. In the United States, if you need a reasonable accommodation for the online application process due to a disability, please call 1-888-336-0660.

This position is hybrid. Candidates who are in commuting distance to a Ford hub location may be required to be onsite four or more days per week.