Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer — AI/HPC Networking Silicon

Accountabilities:

You will own key elements of the embedded firmware architecture, ensuring that management firmware securely provisions, initializes, monitors, and updates on-chip acceleration engines. You will also establish engineering standards and guide technical execution across the platform.

• Firmware Architecture and Development: Architect, design, and implement bare-metal C firmware running on a RISC-V management core to provision, boot, and supervise arrays of on-chip acceleration engines.

• Secure Firmware Loading: Develop and maintain the secure firmware-loading pipeline, including fetching images from flash, coordinating authentication through hardware root-of-trust mechanisms, and distributing verified images into individual engines' local memories using on-chip fan-out and DMA hardware.

• Engine Initialization and Health Monitoring: Implement per-engine bring-up, reset sequencing, and health validation through control and status registers, with robust timeout handling, error recovery, and enforced security invariants.

• Multi-Engine and Multi-Die Support: Scale firmware distribution and initialization across numerous engines and multiple dies, supporting runtime rebooting and in-field firmware updates.

• Hardware/Software Interface Definition: Define and maintain hardware/software contracts with ASIC and RTL teams using a datamodel-first workflow and tools such as SystemRDL, Kaitai, and YAML-based code generation.

• Firmware Validation and Testing: Validate firmware using functional simulators such as QEMU, supported by automated unit and integration tests.

• AI-Assisted Engineering: Integrate AI tools into firmware design, implementation, debugging, and testing workflows while ensuring generated code and recommendations are rigorously reviewed and validated.

• Technical Leadership: Establish architecture and coding standards, lead design and code reviews, make key technical decisions, and mentor engineers across the team.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with silicon, hardware, and software engineering teams to resolve integration challenges and deliver secure, reliable, production-ready firmware.

Requirements:

You are a seasoned embedded firmware engineer with deep expertise in low-level software, silicon bring-up, and secure firmware architecture. You bring strong technical judgment, a track record of leading complex engineering initiatives, and the ability to use AI-assisted development tools effectively without compromising reliability or security.

• Professional Experience: 10 or more years of embedded systems or firmware engineering experience, including software architecture ownership and technical leadership.

• C Programming: Expert-level proficiency in C; C++ experience is an advantage.

• Python: Working knowledge of Python for scripting, automation, testing, and development support.

• Bare-Metal Firmware: Extensive hands-on experience developing bare-metal firmware for constrained processing cores, including low-level hardware initialization and manual management of local memories.

• Secure Boot and Authentication: Experience implementing secure boot or firmware image authentication and integrating hardware root-of-trust mechanisms.

• Register-Level Hardware Interfaces: Proven experience programming control and status registers (CSRs) and collaborating with silicon engineering teams to design register-level interfaces.

• AI-Assisted Development: Demonstrated practical proficiency with AI-assisted engineering tools, together with the technical judgment to verify generated code, identify errors, and validate results.

• RISC-V Expertise: Experience with RISC-V firmware development and toolchains is preferred.

• Accelerator Firmware: Familiarity with firmware orchestration across multicore or multi-engine accelerator arrays is an advantage.

• Hardware Security Technologies: Knowledge of hardware root-of-trust ecosystems such as Caliptra, along with SHA-2 hashing and digital signature verification, is desirable.

• Code Generation and Co-Verification: Familiarity with tools and workflows such as SystemRDL, Kaitai, CMake, and simulator-based hardware/software co-verification is preferred.

• AI/HPC Networking: Knowledge of emerging interconnect standards such as Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC), UALink, and ESUN is an advantage.

• Networking and HPC Background: Experience with high-performance computing, AI networking, RDMA, or libfabric is beneficial.

• Technical Leadership and Communication: Ability to make sound architectural decisions, review complex designs, mentor engineers, and collaborate effectively across hardware and software disciplines.

• Remote Work: Ability to work remotely while residing within the United States.

Benefits:

• Competitive compensation: A comprehensive total rewards package combining base salary, equity, and performance-based incentives.

• Individualized base pay: Salary determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location relative to the hiring range.

• Performance incentives: Eligibility for an annual bonus or other incentives, depending on the role.

• Medical coverage: Medical, dental, and vision insurance.

• Insurance protection: Disability and life insurance, plus accidental injury insurance.

• Additional coverage: Dependent care flexible spending account and pet insurance.

• Retirement savings: 401(k) plan with employer matching contributions.

• Paid time off: Generous paid holidays and Open Time Off (OTO) for regular full-time exempt employees.

• Additional leave: Sick time, bonding leave, and pregnancy disability leave.

• Flexible work environment: Fully remote work for employees residing in the United States.

• Industry collaboration: Opportunities to work with influential organizations and experts across the semiconductor industry.

• Innovative engineering environment: The opportunity to contribute to advanced AI and HPC networking technologies within a collaborative, technically ambitious team.

• Equal opportunity: A commitment to fair employment practices, reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process, and consideration of all qualified applicants.