Principal Firmware Engineer

Summary

As a Principal Firmware Engineer, you will serve as a senior technical authority and hands-on contributor shaping the firmware that powers Firefly's launch vehicles, spacecraft, and ground systems. You will own complex firmware architectures, drive technical decisions across multiple programs, and mentor engineers while remaining deeply involved in design, implementation, and debugging.

This role demands deep expertise in embedded firmware, strong system-level thinking, and the ability to influence technical direction across hardware, software, and systems teams. You will tackle the most challenging firmware problems, establish best practices, and help ensure the reliability and performance required for spaceflight. Candidates should be prepared for a fast-paced startup environment that rewards technical ownership, creativity, and collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Technical Authority & Architecture: Define and own firmware architectures for critical avionics systems. Make key technical decisions on design approach, interfaces, and trade-offs that balance performance, reliability, schedule, and risk.
• Hands-on Development: Design, implement, and debug complex firmware in C/C++ for embedded targets. Contribute directly to drivers, bootloaders, board support packages, real-time control loops, and hardware abstraction layers.
• Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Provide technical guidance and mentoring to firmware and embedded software engineers. Lead design reviews, establish coding and verification standards, and raise the technical capability of the team.
• System Integration & Collaboration: Work closely with hardware, FPGA, GNC, systems, and software engineers to ensure seamless integration of firmware with sensors, actuators, processors, and higher-level software.
• Reliability & Process: Drive best practices for high-reliability firmware development, including verification, fault handling, configuration management, and flight-worthiness considerations. Help refine team processes for design, analysis, test, and V&V.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related field.
• Minimum 10+ years of embedded firmware or embedded software development experience.
• Strong proficiency in C (and preferably C++) on bare-metal, RTOS, and/or embedded Linux targets.
• Deep experience with microcontrollers, ARM architectures, and low-level hardware interfaces (SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, Ethernet, etc.).
• Hands-on lab experience bringing up and debugging firmware on embedded hardware.
• Demonstrated ability to architect complex firmware systems and mentor other engineers.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to explain technical trade-offs to both engineers and non-engineers.
• Ability to thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced environment with evolving requirements.

Desired

• Master's degree in a related field.
• Experience with real-time operating systems (FreeRTOS, VxWorks, or similar) and/or embedded Linux.
• Familiarity with high-reliability or safety-critical firmware development practices.
• Experience with SoC platforms, bootloaders, and board support packages.
• Exposure to radiation effects, fault tolerance, or space-qualified systems.
• Experience integrating firmware with FPGAs or custom ASICs.
• Comfortable with scripts, build systems, and command-line tools (Python, bash, etc.).
• Prior experience in aerospace, space systems, defense, or other high-reliability domains.

Additional information

Firefly offers outstanding benefits for our employees, including generous health, dental and vision plans with low plan deductibles, parental leave, relocation benefits, educational reimbursement, short term disability, and flexible PTO options.

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.