Principal / Staff Engineer – Firmware Development

Job Title

Principal / Staff Engineer – Firmware Development

Role Summary

Lead customer-facing engineering and technical escalation for security firmware on SSD products. Act as primary owner for debugging, root-cause analysis, firmware fixes, and security feature enablement to meet functional, performance, and security requirements.

Work with cross-functional teams and customers to integrate, validate, and document secure storage features and support incident response, compliance activities, and long-term reliability of firmware in the field.

Experience Level

Senior level. The posting requests 5+ years of relevant experience.

Responsibilities

Provide technical ownership for security firmware issues, customer integration, and product compliance.

• Serve as primary technical escalation point for Security Firmware on SSD products; triage, prioritize, and drive customer issues to resolution within committed timelines.
• Guide customers on configuration, integration, and validation of SSD security features (e.g., secure boot, signed firmware update, key management, device attestation).
• Reproduce failures in lab, analyze firmware logs/traces/bus captures, debug firmware source, and produce documented root cause and corrective actions.
• Develop, unit test, and validate targeted firmware changes and customer-specific builds to meet security, functional, performance, and reliability requirements.
• Assess impact of reported vulnerabilities; support mitigation planning, remediation delivery, and customer disclosure.
• Support customer security audits, questionnaires, and certification activities (e.g., FIPS 140-3, Common Criteria) and create integration guides and application notes.
• Represent the organization in technical customer engagements and convey technical risk and constraints to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Maintain accurate issue records, root cause reports, and knowledge-base content to improve long-term support efficiency.
• Collaborate across firmware, product engineering, quality, and field applications; contribute to team development and continuous improvement.
• Integrate AI-assisted tools responsibly to improve efficiency and quality of work within organizational standards.

Requirements

Key skills, technologies, and experience required or strongly preferred.

• Must-have: Embedded security domain knowledge (cryptography fundamentals such as AES, RSA/ECC, SHA; key management; secure boot; secure firmware update).
• Must-have: Proficiency debugging and resolving firmware code problems using debuggers, firmware trace/log analysis, and protocol analyzers.
• Must-have: Proficiency in systems programming languages (C, C++, Rust) and firmware development tooling.
• Must-have: Experience with defect tracking, change control, and firmware release processes in production or sustaining environments.
• Must-have: Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to manage multiple concurrent escalations under time pressure.
• Must-have: Baseline digital fluency and role-appropriate AI literacy to use AI-enabled tools responsibly for research, analysis, and operational tasks.
• Nice-to-have: Customer-facing engineering experience (customer engineering support, field applications, sustaining engineering, or escalation management).
• Nice-to-have: Familiarity with storage security standards and features (TCG Opal/Enterprise SSC, ATA Security, NVMe security/sanitize commands, self-encrypting drives).
• Nice-to-have: Experience programming in Python for test automation, log parsing, and debug tooling.
• Nice-to-have: Understanding of storage interfaces (PCIe/NVMe, SATA, SAS) and experience with NAND flash or other non-volatile storage.
• Nice-to-have: Experience in the storage industry, storage systems, or related technology domains.

Education Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field is specified. The posting also states 5+ years of relevant experience. Certifications and compliance activities cited include FIPS 140-3 and Common Criteria (as supported activities, not stated as mandatory certifications).

About the Company

Company: Micron Technology

Headquarters: Boise, Idaho, USA

Micron Technology is a global leader in memory and storage solutions, dedicated to transforming how the world uses information. The company offers a diverse portfolio of high-performance DRAM, NAND, and NOR memory products under the Micron and Crucial brands. With a commitment to customer focus and technological innovation, Micron drives advancements in artificial intelligence, 5G, and other data-centric applications, empowering users to learn, communicate, and progress.