Senior Firmware Design Engineer

The Senior Firmware Design Engineer will spend 100% of working time performing the following duties:

CPU Firmware Architecture and Development: Architect, develop, and maintain low-level firmware and device drivers in C/C++ and assembly language targeting bare-metal and pre-OS execution environments on RISC-V processor platforms. Define firmware module boundaries, hardware abstraction layer (HAL) interfaces, and initialization sequencing for novel proprietary CPU designs. Write production-quality firmware for CPU bring-up, power management, system initialization, diagnostics, and hardware debug.

Hardware-Software Interface Definition and RISC Architecture Support: Apply practical knowledge of RISC-based processor architectures, including assembly code understanding and execution flow, to define and implement firmware interfaces for custom CPU features. Collaborate directly with CPU architecture and RTL design teams on custom instruction set extensions, machine-mode control and status registers (CSRs), and memory-mapped I/O peripheral configuration. Translate hardware architectural specifications into firmware-level interface requirements and implementation plans.

Bootloader and Platform Bring-Up Development: Design, implement, and validate bootloaders, ROM initialization sequences, and full platform bring-up code. Implement firmware-controlled memory initialization routines including DRAM training and initialization procedures. Optimize system boot performance and firmware runtime behavior for latency, power efficiency, and reliability. Develop and maintain support for firmware standards including UEFI/ACPI and open-source bootloaders such as U-Boot where applicable.

Pre-Silicon and Post-Silicon Validation Support: Develop and deploy firmware for use in hardware verification, RTL simulation, and FPGA emulation environments to validate and stress CPU designs prior to physical silicon tape-out. Perform hardware model bring-up and debug activities using GDB-based debug mechanisms and associated tooling including JTAG debug infrastructure (e.g., OpenOCD, Lauterbach). Support post-silicon lab bring-up including board initialization, failure analysis, and root cause analysis on hardware-firmware interaction failures.

Firmware Security Implementation (approx. 15%) Design and implement security-critical firmware features including secure boot, hardware root-of-trust, key provisioning, and trusted firmware components. Ensure firmware security architecture complies with industry best practices and relevant platform security standards. Collaborate with security-focused architecture teams to translate hardware security primitives into robust firmware-enforced security policies.

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a closely related field, plus three (3) years of post-baccalaureate professional experience to include:
• Developing low-level device drivers and infrastructure firmware for SoC, CPU and/or GPU emulation platforms in C/C++ programming language, targeting pre-silicon execution environments.
• Applying practical knowledge of RISC-based assembly code understanding and execution flow and verification purposes.
• Performing hardware model bring-up and debug activities using GDB-based debug mechanisms and associated tooling.
• Experience with memory-mapped I/O peripheral configuration and DRAM initialization procedures.
• Experience with industry-standard software build systems (e.g. Make, CMake) and maintaining codebases using version control software (Git or Perforce).
• Documenting infrastructure firmware design decisions and collaborating with hardware engineering and architecture teams to support software-hardware integration.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary and benefits package.
• Opportunities for professional growth in an innovative startup environment.
• Collaboration with talented engineers passionate about cutting-edge CPU technologies.
• Opportunity to disrupt the CPU ecosystem