Firmware Engineer
📌Salt Lake City, United States 🇺🇸
⏱︎ full-time
🧙♂️ mid-level
Position Summary
We are seeking a talented and detail-oriented Firmware Engineer to develop, optimize, and maintain embedded software systems for our UAV platforms. You will be responsible for writing low-level code that interfaces with flight controllers, sensors, motor controllers, and wireless modules—forming the core logic that makes our drones stable, responsive, and intelligent. The ideal candidate has experience with real-time systems, hardware bring-up, and close collaboration with electrical, mechanical, and software teams.
Essential Duties And Responsibilities
- Firmware Development
- Design, develop, and maintain embedded firmware for drone control systems including flight controllers, ESCs, GPS modules, sensors, and telemetry radios.
- Implement real-time control loops, device drivers, and peripheral interfaces (SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, PWM).
- Support flight modes, motor sequencing, failsafe routines, and sensor fusion algorithms in coordination with flight software.
- System Bring-Up & Hardware Integration
- Work with electrical engineers to bring up new PCB designs and validate hardware functionality.
- Integrate and debug new sensors (IMUs, barometers, compasses, range finders) and communication modules.
- Tune and calibrate ESCs and motor control parameters for different drone configurations.
- Optimization & Debugging
- Profile and optimize firmware for memory usage, CPU load, and power consumption.
- Use oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and JTAG/SWD tools for real-time debugging and trace capture.
- Identify and resolve stability issues, startup failures, or runtime bugs in flight-critical firmware.
- Testing & Field Validation
- Support test flights to validate firmware behavior under real-world conditions.
- Contribute to automated testing frameworks for continuous firmware validation across hardware variants.
- Document firmware changes, update release logs, and support field upgrades.
- Collaboration & Standards
- Collaborate with flight control, autonomy, electrical, and mobile app teams to align firmware with system-level behavior.
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Ensure compliance with industry safety, quality, and communication protocols (e.g., MAVLink, RTPS, NDAA standards if applicable).
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field.
- 3+ years of experience in embedded firmware development, ideally in aerospace, robotics, or automotive sectors.
- Proficiency in C/C++ and experience with real-time operating systems (FreeRTOS, ChibiOS, Zephyr, etc.).
- Experience with microcontroller platforms (e.g., STM32, NXP, TI, Microchip) and toolchains (GCC, Keil, IAR).
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Familiarity with low-level communication protocols and embedded debugging tools.
- Experience with drone platforms (PX4, ArduPilot, DJI SDK, or proprietary flight stacks).
- Background in motor control, ESC firmware, or inertial navigation systems.
- Knowledge of secure bootloaders, OTA firmware updates, or fault-tolerant firmware design.
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Experience in safety-critical or regulated embedded environments (FAA, DO-178, MIL-STD).
- Lab, workshop, and occasional field-testing environment.
- Hands-on work with drone hardware including test rigs, soldering, and flight validation.
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Fast-paced team focused on reliability, safety, and innovation.
This position will require successfully completing a post-offer background check. Qualified candidates with a criminal history will be considered and are not automatically disqualified, consistent with federal and state law.
EEO and ITAR/EAR Work Authorization Disclosure
Red Cat Holdings provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This position requires direct or indirect access to hardware, software, technology or technical data controlled under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). Successful candidates for positions subject to ITAR/EAR restrictions must provide proof of U.S. Citizenship or Permanent Residence and must not require sponsorship for export-restricted work authorization.
E-Verify
The company participates ensure eligibility for employment and compliance with rules.
Compensation: Salary plus generous annual equity package and potential bonuses.
Senior Embedded Software Engineer
@ Embedd 
What we're looking for
At embedd.it, we power hardware-software integration in embedded devices. We turn fragmented semiconductor chip data into configurable digital twins, then deterministically generate code, tests, and documentation – making integration faster, cheaper, and resilient to supply chain shocks.
We’re looking for a true legend – someone with abstract thinking and deep expertise in low-level software development. You’ll build vendor-agnostic tooling for MCU and peripheral integration to solve hardware-software integration once and for all. We work at the intersection of embedded systems, code generation, compilers, and machine learning. It’s your chance to help redefine how low-level development is done.
Responsibilities
- Drive the architecture of the driver structures and system layout
- Define scalable patterns for cross-architectural integration across bare-metal, Zephyr, Linux, and other environments
- Deconstruct complex SoC device trees and translate hardware descriptions into structured internal models for automated reasoning
- Partner with the ML team to shape data and annotation models for AI-driven data-extraction tooling
Qualifications
- 5+ years of experience in embedded systems development, including bare-metal and RTOS-based systems
- Proficiency in C/C++
- Familiarity with firmware configuration, SoC bring-up, and system-level debugging
- Hands-on experience with code generation tools, or low-level compiler/decompiler/emulator technologies
- Strong background in embedded toolchains: compilers, linkers, debuggers, and build systems
- Python or scripting for automation and tooling is a plus
- Experience with functional-safety standards is a plus
Why embedd.it?
- Dynamic, venture-backed team of engineers challenging the status quo 🚀
- Work at the intersection of embedded systems, code generators, compilers, and ML 🤖
- Unusual challenges requiring out-of-the-box abstract thinking 🧠
- Competitive compensation: cash + equity 💰
- Remote work possible 🌍
About Us
embedd.it is a UK-based startup reinventing embedded development. Our platform transforms unstructured semiconductor data into structured digital twins, enabling automatic generation of drivers, tests, and documentation. We're building a single, traceable source of truth to make integration fast, vendor-agnostic, and future-proof.
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Employment
⏱︎ full-time
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Experience
🧙♂️ mid-level
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Skills
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Industry
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