Principal Firmware Architect

Heron Power Electronics Company

$170K — $260K *
Consumer Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 8+ years of embedded firmware development with multiple shipped products
  • Expert-level embedded C/C++
  • Deep experience with RTOS, bootloaders, and low-level hardware drivers
  • Proven experience architecting large embedded systems
  • Experience building firmware CI/CD and automated testing frameworks
  • Strong hardware debugging skills (oscilloscope, logic analyzer, etc.)
  • Demonstrated technical leadership and mentorship

Responsibilities

  • Define and own the long-term architecture for embedded firmware across Heron products
  • Establish reusable platform software, hardware abstraction layers, and shared infrastructure
  • Set coding standards and lead design reviews
  • Drive system-level technical decisions across firmware and hardware boundaries
  • Architect and implement RTOS-based firmware for high-performance power conversion
  • Design low-latency control infrastructure and key drivers and peripherals
  • Implement logging, diagnostics, tracing, and observability tools on-device

Benefits

  • Competitive compensation with salary and equity
  • Supportive, fast-paced work environment
  • Focus on innovation and learning through collaboration
  • Opportunity to shape foundational technologies for next-gen power systems
Full Job Description
Job Overview

As a Principal Embedded Software Engineer / Firmware Architect, you will own the technical vision and architecture for Heron's embedded firmware platform.

You will define how our converters are operated and monitored at the device level - from microcontroller selection and RTOS architecture to resource management, safety infrastructure, and production firmware processes. This role blends deep hands-on engineering with system architecture and technical leadership.

Why This Role Is Different

This role owns the device brain. You'll architect the firmware platform that every Heron product is built on - shaping performance, reliability, maintainability and scaleability at the foundation - while partnering closely with controls and cloud engineers to deliver a complete solution.

If you enjoy building robust embedded systems from the metal up and setting technical direction for an entire product line, you'll thrive here.

How You Will Contribute

Architecture & Technical Leadership
  • Define and own the long-term architecture for embedded firmware across Heron products
  • Establish reusable platform software, hardware abstraction layers, and shared infrastructure
  • Set coding standards, architectural ethos, and development practices, while leading design reviews and mentoring embedded engineers
  • Drive system-level technical decisions across firmware and hardware boundaries

Real-Time & Control Firmware
  • Architect and implement RTOS-based firmware for high-performance power conversion
  • Design low-latency control infrastructure, fault management, telemetry, real-time scheduling, and key drivers and peripherals (PWM, ADC, communications, etc.)
  • Evaluate and select microcontrollers/SoCs for new platforms
  • Build safety-critical and high-reliability firmware systems

Device Infrastructure
  • Design bootloaders, secure firmware architecture, and update mechanisms
  • Implement logging, diagnostics, tracing, and observability tools on-device
  • Define device-side communication interfaces and data models
  • Partner with the connected systems team members to enable telemetry, OTA, and fleet management
  • Support manufacturing test, provisioning, and production workflows

Quality & Tooling
  • Architect build system, CI/CD, and automated testing infrastructure for firmware
  • Define unit, integration, and hardware-in-the-loop testing strategies
  • Improve developer tooling and validation pipelines


What You Will Bring

Must-Have
  • 8+ years of embedded firmware development with multiple shipped products
  • Expert-level embedded C/C++
  • Deep experience with RTOS, bootloaders, and low-level hardware drivers
  • Proven experience architecting large embedded systems (not just implementing features)
  • Experience building firmware CI/CD and automated testing frameworks
  • Strong hardware debugging skills (oscilloscope, logic analyzer, etc.)
  • Demonstrated technical leadership and mentorship
Nice-to-Have
  • Real-time control systems or power electronics experience
  • Safety-critical or high-reliability firmware (IEC 61508, UL1998, etc.)
  • Secure boot and device security experience
  • Experience integrating embedded systems with cloud/IoT platforms
  • FPGA or ASIC familiarity
  • Production manufacturing and field support experience

If you are passionate about technology and enjoy working in a fast-paced environment, we would love to hear from you. Join us in accelerating the electrification of everything at Heron Power.

Heron Power provides competitive compensation (salary and equity) and benefits. The salary for this role ranges from $170,000 to $260,000 per year.

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