Senior Embedded Security Vulnerability Analyst (m/f/d)

Job Title

Senior Embedded Security Vulnerability Analyst (m/f/d)

Role Summary

Perform deep technical analysis of embedded systems to identify and assess vulnerabilities at the hardware/software boundary. Work with product and firmware teams to drive secure designs and mitigations.

The role focuses on low-level firmware, boot code, and security-critical components and includes advancing analysis approaches such as AI-assisted vulnerability discovery.

Experience Level

Senior — position expects an experienced professional; title indicates senior-level responsibilities and leadership of complex technical investigations.

Responsibilities

Key responsibilities include technical analysis, tooling, and collaboration to reduce security risk in embedded products.

• Perform in-depth vulnerability analysis of embedded software (bare-metal, RTOS, trusted execution environments).
• Analyze boot flows, privilege boundaries, crypto/key handling, and isolation mechanisms.
• Conduct root cause analysis and assess exploitability and impact of findings.
• Support security certifications and evaluations (e.g., PSA, SESIP, Common Criteria) as required.
• Investigate PSIRT incidents and recommend structural improvements.
• Develop and apply analysis methodologies and tooling: static analysis, fuzzing, scripting, automation.
• Design and refine workflows that combine static/dynamic analysis with AI-assisted techniques (LLM-based or agentic workflows).
• Research emerging attack techniques relevant to embedded systems and collaborate with development teams to translate findings into mitigations.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience; differentiators are listed separately as nice-to-have.

Must-have:

• Strong understanding of low-level system behavior: memory layout, interrupts, privilege levels, concurrency.
• Solid experience in C programming and low-level firmware development.
• Familiarity with ARM and/or RISC-V architectures.
• Experience with assembly-level debugging and analysis tools (e.g., GDB, hardware debug interfaces).
• Ability to perform independent, complex technical investigations and to communicate findings clearly to engineering teams.

Nice-to-have:

• Vulnerability research, reverse engineering, or exploit development experience.
• Familiarity with static/dynamic analysis tooling, fuzzing, or symbolic execution.
• Experience with debugging interfaces such as JTAG, trace, or hardware probes.
• Experience using or evaluating AI-assisted code analysis and building automated analysis workflows.
• Rust experience or interest in memory-safe system design.

Education Requirements

Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related technical field (as stated in the original posting).

About the Company

Company: NXP Semiconductors

Headquarters: Nijmegen, Netherlands

NXP Semiconductors N.V. is a global semiconductor company that provides High Performance Mixed Signal and Standard Product solutions. With over 45,000 employees and operations in more than 35 countries, NXP is a leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, catering to automotive, industrial IoT, mobile, and communication infrastructure markets. The company is committed to innovation and sustainability, advancing a smarter, safer, and more sustainable world through technology.