Staff Software Engineer – DSP & AI Optimisation

Job Title

Staff Software Engineer – DSP & AI Optimisation

Role Summary

Design, optimise and demonstrate DSP, audio, vision and AI workloads on Arm-based embedded platforms. Work with hardware architects, software teams and silicon partners to bring up development platforms, port operating systems, integrate subsystems and showcase performance.

Experience Level

Senior - staff-level engineering role. No explicit years-of-experience stated.

Responsibilities

Deliver low-level platform bring-up, performance optimisation, system integration and technical demonstrations.

• Platform bring-up: enable and configure bare-metal, RTOS (e.g. Zephyr) and embedded Linux environments.
• Performance optimisation: port and accelerate DSP, audio, vision and AI workloads using architectural features (MVE/Helium, NEON, SVE2, SME).
• Develop and optimise compute kernels (FFTs, filters, image processing, ML preprocessing).
• System integration: connect sensors, memory subsystems, DMA, accelerators and software into processing pipelines.
• Benchmarking and profiling: analyse CPU utilisation, memory bandwidth, cache behaviour, latency and power using counters and profiling tools.
• Produce representative applications and technical demonstrations of processor and accelerator capabilities.
• Collaborate with processor architects, software teams and silicon partners to identify bottlenecks and recommend improvements.

Requirements

Must-have practical skills listed first; preferred/optional skills follow.

• Strong proficiency in C and C++ and low-level embedded programming.
• Solid understanding of processor architecture, memory hierarchies, caches, DMA and interrupt handling.
• Experience with embedded OSes such as RTOS, Zephyr or embedded Linux.
• Practical experience in performance profiling and code optimisation.
• Familiarity with DSP algorithms, fixed-point arithmetic and SIMD/vector processing.
• Experience with embedded development tools: compilers, debuggers and hardware evaluation boards.
• Strong problem-solving skills and clear technical communication.
• Right to work in the UK without requiring sponsorship.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience with Arm Cortex-M and Cortex-A architectures and assembly-level SIMD optimisation.
• MVE (Helium), NEON, SVE2 or SME optimisation experience.
• Familiarity with CMSIS-DSP, CMSIS-NN or equivalent compute libraries.
• Experience with Ethos-U NPUs or other AI accelerators.
• Background in audio processing, computer vision or sensor fusion.
• Experience with embedded ML frameworks (e.g. TensorFlow Lite) and inference on constrained devices.
• Python scripting for automation, benchmarking and analysis.
• Experience with FPGA prototypes or pre-silicon platforms.
• Familiarity with Agentic-AI applied to software creation and optimisation.
• Hardware–software co-design and system-level optimisation experience.

Education Requirements

Not specified.

About the Company

Company: Arm

Headquarters: Cambridge, United Kingdom

ARM is a global leader in semiconductor and software design, driving innovation in computing technology. The company specializes in designing processors and systems that provide the essential building blocks for electronic devices. ARM's architecture is widely used in smartphones, servers, and IoT devices, and its collaborative culture fosters bold thinking, diversity, and high-impact benefits for its talented workforce.