Senior Firmware Engineer, Robotics

Fremont Office. Posted 7 months ago

The role

You will own the low-level firmware stack for general-purpose robots. You will architect, implement, test, and release production firmware for actuator controllers, sensing systems, power electronics, and real-time communication devices.

What you will do

Architect and develop production-grade firmware for actuator controllers, sensor interfaces, power systems, and communication devices
Own firmware architecture across bootloaders, BSPs, hardware abstraction layers, RTOS services, device drivers, diagnostics, and firmware update mechanisms
Bring up and validate new PCBs including peripheral initialization, clock and memory configuration, interrupt handling, DMA, and low-level hardware interfaces
Implement deterministic, real-time firmware on bare-metal and RTOS platforms
Develop and optimize motor-control firmware including current, torque, velocity, and position control loops
Implement and maintain real-time communication stacks including EtherCAT, CAN/CAN FD, SPI, I2C, and UART
Design firmware safety and reliability mechanisms
Build observability and field-diagnostic capabilities
Develop automated unit, integration, hardware-in-the-loop, stress, and fault-injection testing
Build and maintain firmware CI/CD, validation, versioning, and release processes

Required qualifications

5+ years of professional embedded firmware development experience in robotics, automotive, industrial automation, or complex consumer electronics, including experience shipping production-deployed pro
Strong C and C++ programming skills in resource-constrained bare-metal and RTOS environments
Deep understanding of embedded systems fundamentals, including interrupts, DMA, timers, scheduling, concurrency, memory layout, boot sequences, and real-time behavior
Experience developing firmware across multiple modern MCU families, such as ARM Cortex-M, TI C2000, STM32, or Nordic nRF
Hands-on experience developing motor-control or actuator firmware, including FOC, current or torque control, velocity control, position control, or similar real-time control systems
Driver-level experience with embedded communication protocols, including EtherCAT, CAN/CAN FD, SPI, I2C, and UART
Demonstrated experience with board bring-up, peripheral-driver development, and debugging across the firmware and hardware boundary
Proficiency with embedded debugging and laboratory tools, including JTAG/SWD debuggers, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and protocol analyzers
Ability to read and interpret schematics, PCB layouts, component datasheets, and timing diagrams
Experience developing reliable, testable, and maintainable firmware using modern version control, code review, automated testing, and continuous integration practices
Strong cross-functional communication skills and comfort working directly with electrical, controls, mechanical, and software engineers

Nice to have

Experience scaling firmware from early prototypes to production across hundreds or thousands of deployed units
Experience developing bootloaders, secure firmware update systems, rollback mechanisms, and field-diagnostic tooling
Familiarity with functional safety or embedded security standards such as ISO 26262, IEC 61508, ISO 13849, or IEC 62443
Python experience for firmware tooling, test automation, manufacturing tests, and HIL frameworks
Experience implementing or integrating EtherCAT master or slave stacks, such as SOEM or equivalent
Experience with power-electronics firmware, including battery-management systems, motor inverters, DC-DC converters, or charging systems
Experience with firmware profiling and optimization across timing, memory, compute, and power constraints
Prior experience working in a vertically integrated robotics or hardware startup
Hands-on use of AI coding tools such as Claude Code or Codex

About the company

Dexmate is building the foundation for physical AI by combining a new generation of robots with a universal Physical AI OS. Their mission is to democratize robotics by delivering a plug-and-play platform for developers, researchers, and enterprises.