Senior Embedded Firmware Engineer

Job Title: Senior Embedded Firmware Engineer – Microprocessor Development

Company: Cognitive LLC

Location: Karachi, Pakistan (Remote)

Job Type: Full-Time

Level: Senior (10+ years)

About Cognitive LLC

Chicago-based thermal printer manufacturer building high-reliability printing solutions for mission-critical applications. We are undertaking a significant hardware initiative to replace an existing ASIC with a custom microprocessor solution and need a senior engineer to lead the firmware and low-level hardware bring-up for this project.

The Role

This is a senior individual contributor role focused on a complex microprocessor development project. You will work at the register level, own hardware bring-up from scratch, and develop the full firmware stack on top of the new processor architecture.

What You'll Do

• Lead firmware development for a custom microprocessor replacing an existing ASIC
• Own hardware bring-up, register-level peripheral programming, and board validation
• Develop bare-metal drivers, bootloaders, and low-level firmware from scratch
• Work directly from hardware reference manuals and schematics
• Collaborate with hardware engineers on processor architecture decisions

Requirements

• 10+ years of professional embedded firmware development
• Degree in Computer Engineering preferred
• Deep ARM Cortex-M or RISC-V processor experience
• Register-level peripheral programming (no HAL dependency)
• Proven hardware bring-up experience from scratch
• RTOS: FreeRTOS, Zephyr, or equivalent
• Strong C; assembly a plus
• Experience reading hardware reference manuals and schematics independently
• Debugging: JTAG/SWD, oscilloscope, logic analyzer

Nice to Have

• FPGA or RTL familiarity
• Prior ASIC bring-up or replacement experience
• Thermal printer or similar precision output device experience