Sofarocean
Senior Firmware Engineer
San Francisco
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- Role family
- Engineering
- Seniority
- Senior
- Country
- US
- Work mode
- Remote-friendly
- First seen by hirly
- 2 Sept 2026
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the posting
The Role
You will be a key contributor to the embedded firmware design and implementation of all our hardware products: Spotter, Smart Mooring, next generation platforms and Sofar’s new open hardware connectivity stack — Bristlemouth https://www.bristlemouth.org . You thrive in small and collaborative multidisciplinary teams, and are eager to pitch in to debug and solve gnarly issues. You take pride in your craft. You strive to improve the health of our oceans and planet by shipping a cohesive, elegant and impactful product.
This role will be working onsite from our Pier 28 office at least 3 days per week and reporting to our Senior Engineering Manager.
Some projects you’ll be a part of:
Building new Bristlemouth integrations for Spotter and Smart Mooring and evolving the open source Bristlemouth core APIs
Collaborating cross-functionally to build new features on existing platforms
Developing next generation platforms
Advanced research and experiments with new and emerging technologies
Integrated system testing, open ocean deployments, and the occasional throwing of things out of airplanes to see what breaks
Responsibilities
Design and implement efficient and maintainable FreeRTOS firmware with automated unit and integration tests in a mix of C and C++
Break down complex efforts into parallelizable work streams for your team
Implement host-side test, analysis and automation tools in Python
Participate in code reviews, brainstorms and whiteboard sessions with your team
Write crystal clear specifications and documentation for both external users and internal colleagues
Work alongside electrical and mechanical engineers in designing, integrating, testing and debugging systems
Advocating for the highest leverage features and fixes in product prioritization conversations
Execute frequent releases for internal proprietary firmware as well as open source Bristlemouth firmware, following test plans, building installers, writing release notes, and announcing the releases in friendly and inviting communications for wide audiences
Minimum Job Qualifications
Excellent communication and collaboration skills
Strong systems thinking ability
Solid foundation of software architecture principles
At least 5+ years of professional embedded firmware/software experience
Prior experience as a tech lead for a firmware team
Fluent in embedded C and C++
Comfortable in Python
Experience with FreeRTOS
Breadth of technology experience including multiple embedded platforms
An understanding of common hardware peripherals and interfaces
Bonus Points
Experience with multiple forms of radio telemetry
Experience with IPv6 networking
Experience with ARM Cortex-M0, M4, and M33 cores
Past work in IoT, robotics, drones and/or automotive products
A passion for or connection to the ocean
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