Senior/Staff Firmware Engineer — Hardware Architecture

1X Technologies AS•San Carlos, CA

About The Position

We’re an AI and robotics company based in Palo Alto, California, on a mission to build a truly abundant society through general‑purpose robots capable of performing any kind of work autonomously. We believe that to truly understand the world and grow in intelligence, humanoid robots must live and learn alongside us. That’s why we’re focused on developing friendly home robots designed to integrate seamlessly into everyday life. We’re looking for curious, driven, and passionate people who want to help shape the future of robotics and AI. If this mission excites you, we’d be thrilled to hear from you and explore how you might contribute to our journey. Role Overview We are looking for a cross-functional Firmware / Embedded Engineer to develop and maintain low-level firmware that supports and enables system-level hardware architecture. In this role, you will focus on robust, maintainable, and well-structured embedded software that spans multiple hardware domains and directly informs architectural decisions. You will work closely with hardware architects, electrical engineers, systems engineers, and test engineers to ensure firmware reliably bridges hardware capabilities and higher-level system requirements across prototype and production platforms. The system is a humanoid robot with 20+ distributed embedded nodes that must communicate deterministically, fail safely, and operate continuously in uncontrolled environments. This is a new product category. Established playbooks from adjacent industries are useful starting points, but many of the problems you will encounter do not have known solutions. The ideal candidate reasons from first principles, works comfortably at the boundary between firmware and hardware, and is energized rather than frustrated by problems that require novel approaches.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field
7+ years of industry experience with embedded systems and real-time firmware development
Proficiency in C and C++ for embedded targets
Deterministic communication experience — production-level work implementing, debugging, or substantially modifying a real-time communication stack on embedded hardware. The candidate should understand at a fundamental level how cyclic data exchange, clock synchronization, and protocol state machines work, regardless of which specific protocol was used.
Real-time embedded firmware in bare-metal or minimal-RTOS environments, with direct management of interrupt priorities, DMA transfers, shared-memory coherency, and timing-critical ISR execution
Embedded bus fluency — hands-on experience with CAN/CANopen plus additional embedded interfaces (SPI, I²C, UART, RS-485), demonstrating breadth across communication domains
Hardware debug at the firmware boundary — experience using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and packet capture tools to diagnose problems that span firmware behavior and electrical signaling
Schematic literacy — ability to read transceiver circuits, PHY interfaces, signal-level translation, and power sequencing without requiring hardware engineering interpretation
Firmware update / bootloader experience — design or maintenance of a production firmware update mechanism with integrity verification and rollback capability
Comfortable debugging firmware on real hardware using standard lab tools
Ability to collaborate closely across hardware, systems, and software teams

Nice To Haves

First-principles problem solving — a track record of approaching unfamiliar problems by building understanding from fundamentals rather than relying solely on vendor documentation or established patterns. Many problems in this role do not have reference implementations.
Safety-critical or fault-tolerant firmware — experience developing firmware where failure has physical consequences, in automotive, aerospace, medical, industrial, or defense applications. Familiarity with safety integrity concepts (SIL, ASIL, DAL) and standards such as IEC 61508, ISO 26262, or DO-178C.
Safety-over-network protocols — implementation of any protocol that carries safety commands over a communication bus using black channel principles
Autonomous or mobile robotic systems — communication architectures in systems that move, where cabling is subject to mechanical stress and network topology must account for physical constraints
Multi-node distributed systems — coordinating firmware behavior across many embedded nodes (10+) sharing a common bus, including enumeration, synchronization, and fault isolation
Experience contributing to hardware architecture or system-level design decisions
Familiarity with real-time operating systems (FreeRTOS, SafeRTOS, or similar)
Experience supporting hardware through prototype and production phases
Background in robotics or complex electromechanical systems

Responsibilities

Develop and maintain firmware for the deterministic communication bus connecting 20+ embedded nodes to a central controller, including cyclic data exchange, distributed clock synchronization, and protocol state management
Design real-time data interfaces and acyclic communication channels for device configuration, parameterization, and runtime diagnostics
Architect safety communication firmware that delivers safe shutdown commands within deterministic time bounds, using black channel principles (independent CRC, watchdog, sequence validation) over untrusted transport
Responsible for the testing, validation, and verification of initial firmware releases to ensure functionality, reliability, and performance requirements are met
Integrate network-based safety functions with hardware mechanisms including external watchdogs, gate driver enables, and hardwired safe-state paths
Collaborate with hardware architects to define interfaces, requirements, and trade-offs; support bring-up, integration, and debugging of new platforms
Implement drivers and hardware abstraction layers for embedded bus interface (CAN,CANopen, SPI, I²C, UART) used for communication with battery management, sensors, and peripheral ICs.
Design secure bootloader architecture with cryptographic signing and validated rollback for firmware updates delivered over the communication bus
Develop diagnostic and telemetry infrastructure: logging, error counters, communication statistics, and DFT hooks for production end-of-line validation
Evaluate network topology and redundancy strategies for production, considering failure domain isolation and physical routing constraints within a mobile form factor
Document firmware architecture, interfaces, and assumptions; improve code structure, readability, and maintainability