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Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Hybrid
This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Staff Embedded Firmware & System Software Engineer — Platform Controller and SoC Stack based in India.
This is a staff-level engineering opportunity focused on building the software stack that turns next-generation silicon into a production-ready computing platform. You’ll work across embedded firmware, platform controllers, boot software, kernel drivers, PCIe, IOMMU, DMA, and system-level interfaces. The role combines low-level software development with first-silicon bring-up, hardware debugging, and architecture-level problem solving. You’ll work closely with hardware and design teams to diagnose complex interactions between silicon, firmware, operating systems, and high-speed interconnects. Your work will directly influence platform reliability, performance, security, and the ability of operating systems to run effectively on new hardware. The environment is highly technical, fast-moving, and oriented toward engineers who enjoy solving difficult problems across hardware and software boundaries.
Design, implement, and maintain Zephyr RTOS firmware for platform management controllers, including device drivers, subsystem integrations, and application-level services.
Develop high-quality drivers aligned with Zephyr's driver model, including devicetree bindings, Kconfig configuration, initialization levels and priorities, and device APIs.
Bring up and debug PCIe links on first silicon, investigating link training, LTSSM progression, lane reversal and polarity, equalization, and speed and width negotiation issues.
Implement and maintain PCIe host controller and endpoint drivers, including enumeration, configuration space, BAR allocation, MSI/MSI-X interrupt routing, AER, error handling, ASPM, and link power states.
Configure, validate, and troubleshoot IOMMU functionality, including address translation, DMA remapping, device isolation domains, page-table management, and fault reporting and recovery.
Develop system software throughout the boot and runtime path, including bootloaders, firmware-to-OS handoff, ACPI or device-tree descriptions, kernel drivers, and DMA and memory-management interfaces.
Debug DMA correctness, memory access, and cache coherency issues end to end, tracing problems from device transactions through translation and into system memory.
Perform post-silicon bring-up activities including first-boot debugging, clock and reset validation, bus enumeration, and diagnosis of hardware-versus-firmware issues.
Use JTAG/SWD, ETM/ITM trace, protocol analyzers, logic analyzers, and other low-level debugging tools to investigate intermittent, timing-sensitive, and multi-master failures.
Translate hardware specifications, register maps, and silicon behavior into correct, testable, maintainable software.
Collaborate closely with hardware, RTL, architecture, and design teams to resolve complex silicon and system-level issues.
Contribute to software architecture, engineering standards, code reviews, and development practices across the platform software stack.
Evaluate and apply modern approaches, including AI-assisted development tools, to improve software engineering productivity and quality.
8–10 years of professional experience in embedded firmware and/or system software development, primarily using C.
Meaningful hands-on experience with modern C++ or Rust.
Deep RTOS experience on 32-bit microcontrollers, particularly Arm Cortex-M or RISC-V, including scheduling, priority assignment, interrupt-service routines, synchronization primitives, and associated failure modes.
Proven experience developing drivers within a formal driver model, including bus drivers and interrupt-driven peripherals.
Strong understanding of system software fundamentals, including virtual memory, address translation, DMA, cache coherency, kernel/user-space boundaries, and the path from reset vector to a running operating system.
Working knowledge of PCIe architecture, including enumeration, configuration space, BARs, MSI/MSI-X, and transaction models, with the ability to diagnose device discovery and data-transfer problems.
Practical understanding of IOMMU concepts, including address translation, device isolation, DMA remapping, and common failure modes caused by incorrect configuration.
Demonstrated ability to interpret hardware specifications and register maps and translate them into reliable, testable software with minimal supervision.
Strong debugging and analytical skills, particularly when working across hardware, firmware, operating systems, and silicon.
Experience with PCIe and high-speed interconnects, IOMMU and virtualization, system software, RTOS platforms, or embedded peripherals is highly desirable.
Strong interest in AI-assisted software development and demonstrated ability to use AI-based coding tools effectively.
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across hardware and software engineering teams.
Ability to operate independently, take ownership of technically complex problems, and make sound engineering decisions.
Remote-friendly working opportunity in India, with the option to work from Bengaluru.
Opportunity to work on next-generation silicon and advanced AI/HPC infrastructure technologies.
Exposure to the complete platform software stack, from embedded controllers and boot firmware through operating systems and high-speed interconnects.
Significant technical ownership across firmware, system software, silicon bring-up, and platform architecture.
Opportunity to solve complex hardware-software problems involving PCIe, IOMMU, DMA, memory systems, and high-performance computing.
Close collaboration with experienced hardware, RTL, architecture, and software engineering teams.
Fast-moving engineering environment with an emphasis on technical depth, ownership, experimentation, and shipping real products.
Opportunities to work with emerging semiconductor and chiplet technologies.
Professional growth through staff-level technical ownership and exposure to challenging system architecture problems.
Compensation, healthcare, leave, and other employment benefits are provided according to the applicable employment package and location-specific terms.