About the role
We are seeking an experienced firmware leader to architect, develop, and bring up embedded firmware for advanced Ethernet SERDES, Retimers and diagnostics. This role spans SERDES, calibration, manufacturing and test firmware, and close collaboration with SFP modules, ASIC, manufacturing, test, calibration, and reliability teams. The ideal candidate brings deep experience in firmware, defines ARM and RISC-V-based control architectures, generates digital requirements for custom control ASICs, drives robust firmware development flow and CI, and mentors engineers across programs.
What you'll do
- Architecture & Development: Architect, develop, debug, and release production-grade embedded firmware for next-generation optical engines and optical module platforms (SFP/QSFP/OSFP).
- ASIC & System Specification: Define digital requirements, MCU/processor choices, memory maps, boot sequence, and peripheral requirements for custom optical control ASICs—including control, telemetry, monitoring, interfaces, diagnostics, MACsec security engines, and PTP hardware timestamping.
- Cross-Functional System Integration: Partner closely with ASIC, RTL, and verification teams to drive end-to-end architecture definition, implementation alignment, board-level bring-up, and system-level debug.
- Protocol & High-Speed Interfaces: Implement and maintain firmware for high-speed protocols (Ethernet, PCIe, SerDes, link training, interoperability, and compliance), time-synchronization stacks (PTP/IEEE 1588), link encryption (MACsec), and host-facing interfaces.
- Platform Bring-Up & Diagnostics: Lead initial firmware and digital bring-up for new optical modules, engines, and control ASICs; execute root-cause failure analysis across lab bring-up, qualification, and field-return scenarios.
- Manufacturing & Calibration Engines: Design and deploy firmware for manufacturing test, screening, calibration engines, and lookup tables to enable high-yield volume production.
- DevOps & CI/CD Process Improvement: Establish and refine the firmware development workflow, incorporating modern build/release pipelines, automated test suites, regression coverage, and Continuous Integration (CI).
What We're Looking For
- Education & Experience: BS, MS, or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent, with 8–10+ years of professional experience in embedded firmware development.
- Embedded Software Core: Master-level proficiency in C and C-based SDK development, with exposure to modern C++ or Rust.
- Hardware Architecture & Interfaces: Strong background defining MCU requirements (ARM and RISC-V) and working with low-level buses (I2C, I3C, SPI, MDIO, GPIO).
- Scripting & Automation: High proficiency in Python for pre/post-processing, test automation, and firmware Quality Control (QC).
- DevOps & Tooling: Hands-on experience with GCC/Make, Git/GitHub, Doxygen, CI/CD pipelines, and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) automation.
- Modern Development: Experience utilizing AI-driven coding, refactoring, and automated test generation tools within an embedded firmware workflow.
- Leadership: Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional bring-up efforts and mentoring engineering teams.
Preferred Qualifications
- Security & Network Synchronization: Direct experience developing and integrating MACsec (802.1AE) key management/data-plane acceleration and PTP (IEEE 1588) hardware timestamping / clock recovery synchronization in optical hardware.
- Embedded Security: Practical experience implementing Root of Trust (RoT), Secure Boot, and cryptographic/secure firmware update mechanisms (FOTA/UFOTA).
- SerDes & Diagnostic Frameworks: Hands-on experience architecting SerDes management, link-training tuning, and real-time diagnostic frameworks.
- Quality & Reliability: Experience driving product qualification, stress testing, reliability investigations, and board-level failure analysis (FA).