Senior Embedded/Firmware Engineer (freelance)
intent · Remote job ·
- Work mode
- Remote
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Contract
- Category
- Embedded
- Experience
- 4+ years
intent · Remote job ·
If you're a firmware engineer who's just as comfortable reading a schematic as writing C, and you've spent serious time inside ESP32 or STM32 projects, we want to talk. You'd join us on a freelance, time & material basis: you're paid for the hours you actually work on real client projects. The first three months are about figuring out if we're a good match. When things work out, and that depends on the work itself, the project pipeline, and business timing, there's a real path to our core team with a permanent contract and full benefits.
We've been designing and co-creating connected devices since 2008. Wearables, smart audio, health-tech hardware for clients like Oura and BOSE, backed by investors like a16z and Founders Fund. We're 60+ people, fully remote, and AI-native since before LinkedIn influencers discovered the term. Firmware is where most of our products actually live or die: BLE stacks, power budgets, sensor pipelines, OTA. If you like the kind of bug that only shows up at -10°C with a flat battery, you'll feel at home.
If you like being told exactly what to flash every morning and logging off the second the linker finishes, we're probably not your people. We look for engineers who ask "why" before "how", challenge assumptions, and dig into the hardware when the symptoms don't add up. We're AI-native and we expect you to treat AI as a daily multiplier, not a gimmick. What we expect: ownership of what you touch, straight talk when something on the board doesn't behave, and the kind of curiosity that makes you actually care about the device, not just the code that ships to it.
Plan, develop, and ship firmware for connected devices: wearables, audio, health-tech hardware
Gather and analyze requirements from clients, then turn them into something that actually works on real silicon
Consult clients and internal teams on stacks, tools, and trade-offs
Work side by side with mobile, backend, and QA to make sure the device and its companion app actually understand each other over BLE
Test firmware releases and write the documentation that future-you will thank present-you for
Estimate your own work and flag risks before they become blockers
Push for better practices: code reviews, patterns, knowledge-sharing inside and outside the chapter
Use AI tools as part of your daily workflow, not as a party trick
Fully remote. We have a pet-friendly office in Warsaw and a coworking space in Gdansk if walls and coffee machines motivate you, but nobody will ask why you're not there. Working hours are flexible: most of the team operates between 10:00 and 18:00 CET, and that's when most meetings happen. Evening calls with US-based clients (up to ~20:00) are part of the rhythm, sometimes a couple of times a week, always planned ahead. You'll be part of the Firmware & Hardware chapter for knowledge-sharing, and at the same time on a project squad led by a PM for day-to-day delivery.
135-180 PLN/h net B2B, depending on your experience
Truly flexible hours: you organize your day
Fully remote, with pet-friendly Warsaw office + Gdansk cowork if you want them
Access to our internal knowledge-sharing: tech talks, experiments, side projects
When the first 3 months work out, and that depends on the work, the project pipeline, and business timing, there's a real path to a permanent contract with a fixed monthly salary, 26 days paid leave, 10 sick days, Saltus medical care, and a training budget
No sugarcoating: during the freelance period there's no paid leave or medical benefits. Those come with the permanent contract, and we're transparent about that upfront.
We aim to give you space to ramp up before jumping into live project work, but this is a real company with real deadlines: if the project needs you sooner, we'll make sure you have the support to hit the ground running. You'll get paired with a technical buddy and tackle progressively bigger tasks, so both sides can see how the collaboration feels. Feedback comes early and often, no one waits three months to tell you something isn't working. If it's great, you'll know. If something needs adjusting, you'll hear about it while there's still time to adjust.
The entire process is in English. All interviews are recorded for internal evaluation purposes.
Application with a few screening questions
HR call, ~45 min, casual
Technical meeting, ~90 min, with the firmware team
Final feedback within a few days
Once we're in touch, you'll hear from us fast. We don't ghost and we don't drag.
intent is an equal opportunity employer. We care about what you can do, not where you come from. Send us your CV and a few words about why this caught your eye. Bonus points if you share something you've built that made you proud, ideally something where the firmware had to behave under conditions nobody told you about upfront.
4+ years of professional firmware development
Strong C/C++ for embedded systems (not "I dabbled in microcontrollers in school")
Hands-on ESP32 experience, including ESP-IDF and ESP-ADF
STM32 experience in production projects
Solid Bluetooth knowledge: BLE, Bluetooth Mesh, and comfort across the stack layers
Toolchain fluency: CMake, GCC, Python-based tooling
Familiarity with IoT protocols like MQTT and WebSockets
A feel for the connected device landscape: IoT, home automation, wearables, automotive
English at B2+, written and spoken, because our clients are mostly US-based
Self-reliance, ownership, and the kind of communication where people don't have to guess what you meant
Rapid hardware prototyping on Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, Nucleo
Working knowledge of LoRa, Zigbee, Thread, Wi-Fi, and other networking standards
Fleet deployment and management with AWS IoT Core, GCP Cloud IoT, Azure IoT, or similar
Cryptography in embedded contexts
Audio paths: encoding, decoding, mixers
Machine learning on embedded targets
Rust in firmware
FreeRTOS, Zephyr, or other embedded operating systems
Genuine curiosity about the devices you build, not just the bits flying around them