Senior Embedded Firmware Design Engineer

Job Title

Senior Embedded Firmware Design Engineer

Role Summary

Senior engineer responsible for designing, developing, and validating embedded firmware for low-power mixed-signal sensing SoCs (on-chip ADCs, touch, proximity, gesture). The role spans pre-silicon definition, firmware architecture, and post-silicon validation and customer support.

Works within the Sensing Product Group in the San Diego office and collaborates with system, digital, analog, verification, test, and application teams; includes technical leadership and mentoring responsibilities.

Experience Level

Senior — typically 8–10 years industry experience in embedded firmware for mixed-signal integrated circuits.

Responsibilities

Primary duties include design, verification, and support of embedded firmware and system-level firmware/hardware co-design.

• Define, develop, verify and optimize embedded firmware for low-power mixed-signal circuits from spec to production support.
• Design and deploy rule-based and ML-based inference firmware; use AI-assisted coding tools where appropriate.
• Implement testability and diagnostic features to support silicon bring-up and production test.
• Develop pre-silicon validation strategies: simulation, unit/regression tests, debug, emulation, and FPGA prototypes.
• Specify system-level and hardware-firmware architectures; evaluate CPU/microcontroller choices and memory sizing.
• Support silicon lab evaluation, performance characterization, post-silicon debug, RMA analysis, and field issue resolution.
• Interface across system, digital, analog, verification, test, and application teams.
• Mentor and supervise junior engineers and provide technical guidance to test and product teams.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills, tools, and experience; desired items noted separately.

• Proven firmware development experience for mixed-signal ICs, HW–SW architectures, and real-time embedded systems.
• Deep knowledge of data paths, signal processing algorithms, and system trade-offs (power, speed, memory, HW resources).
• Strong experience with MCU-based systems and architectures (ARM, RISC-V, PIC, STM32).
• Proficiency in C/C++ and assembly; scripting with Python; familiarity with industry IDEs and debugging toolchains.
• Experience with bare-metal firmware development and embedded software practices (version control, release management, integration, unit and regression testing).
• Design-for-test and diagnostic feature implementation experience.
• Familiarity with standard hardware protocols: I2C, I3C, SPI, MIPI, JTAG, PCIe.
• Hands-on experience with development boards, FPGAs, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, power supplies, multimeters, and measurement methods.
• Demonstrated technical leadership, strong analytical/problem-solving skills, and effective verbal and written communication.

Education Requirements

B.S. or M.S. in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering.

Desired Qualifications

Nice-to-have skills that strengthen candidacy.

• Experience with system/digital design tools and languages (Matlab, SystemVerilog/Verilog/VHDL).
• Experience in consumer, industrial, or automotive circuit development.

About the Company

Company: Semtech

Headquarters: Camarillo, California, USA

Semtech Corporation is a high-performance semiconductor company providing IoT systems and Cloud connectivity solutions. The company focuses on delivering innovative technology solutions that support a smarter, more connected, and sustainable planet, with a dedication to quality across infrastructure, industrial, and consumer markets.