Senior/Staff Firmware Engineer
Job Description
<p><strong>Company Overview:</strong></p> <p>BrightAI is a high-growth Physical AI company transforming how businesses interact with the physical world through intelligent automation. Our platform processes visual, spatial, and temporal data from billions of real-world events—captured through edge devices, mobile sensors, and large-scale cloud infrastructure—to deliver intelligent, real-time decisions.</p> <p><strong>Responsibilities:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Design, implement, and maintain embedded firmware with a strong emphasis on ultra-low power consumption.</li> <li>Develop drivers and low-level firmware for microcontrollers (MCUs), sensors, and wireless modules (e.g., BLE, Zigbee, LoRa).</li> <li>Collaborate with hardware engineers to define power budgets and validate low-power designs.</li> <li>Implement and test power management techniques such as sleep modes, clock gating, and dynamic voltage scaling.</li> <li>Perform power profiling and debugging using tools such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, energy analyzers and current probes.</li> <li>Optimize code size and execution efficiency in resource-constrained environments.</li> <li>Ability to work in a no-OS or lightweight RTOS environment</li> <li>Participate in design reviews, code reviews, and contribute to technical documentation.</li> <li>Ensure compliance with industry standards and best practices for embedded development.</li> <li>Lead the integration of embedded communication protocols like I2C, SPI, and UART, facilitating robust data exchange across various embedded system components.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Skills and Expertise:</strong></p> <ul> <li>BS/MS degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.</li> <li>7+ years of experience in embedded software development, with a strong emphasis on low power design.</li> <li>Proficiency in C/C++ for embedded systems.</li> <li>Hands-on experience with low-power microcontrollers (e.g., ARM Cortex-M series, nRF52, Ambiq, MSP430).</li> <li>Familiarity with RTOS concepts and experience with lightweight operating systems (e.g., FreeRTOS or Zephyr).</li> <li>Deep understanding of hardware/software interaction and power management techniques.</li> <li>Deep familiarity with source control (Git) and development workflows.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Bonus Criteria:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Experience with wireless communication protocols (BLE, Zigbee, LoRa, etc.).</li> <li>Knowledge of PCB schematics and the ability to work closely with hardware engineers.</li> <li>Familiarity with version control systems (e.g., Git).</li> <li>Experience with scripting languages (Python, Bash) for test automation.</li> <li>Prior work on battery-operated or energy-harvesting devices.</li> <li>Advanced skills in designing optimized solutions using C for embedded systems with stringent resource constraints.</li> <li>Strong background in math-based programming, with the ability to apply linear algebra for complex tasks like digital signal processing and machine learning.</li> <li>Experience in developing AI/ML solutions, with hands-on expertise in frameworks such as Edge Impulse, OpenCV and PyTorch for embedded applications.</li> <li>Deep experience in system architectures, including event-driven and modular design approaches, as well as abstracting hardware layers (HAL, sensor fusion, application layers).</li> <li>Proven experience in developing, maintaining, and scaling CI/CD pipelines, particularly with tools like GitHub Actions, to ensure high-quality, automat