Firmware Engineer

Elveo•Chantilly, VA

8d•Onsite

About The Position

The Firmware Engineer will develop bare-metal and RTOS firmware for microcontrollers throughout Elveo’s satellites, including the direct-to-device communications payload and spacecraft bus. The role works between Flight Software and Electrical Engineering, bringing up new boards, developing drivers and control loops, and defining interfaces used by Linux-based flight software to command and monitor hardware. Firmware is developed and tested using lab hardware and a flatsat prototype before flight. The position is based in Chantilly, Virginia. Satellite experience is not required; experience delivering firmware in areas such as robotics, automotive, drones, medical devices, or industrial controls may be relevant. Title, scope, and compensation scale with experience.

Requirements

Proficiency in C for embedded systems, demonstrated through professional work, significant academic or personal projects, or open-source contributions.
Experience developing microcontroller firmware, including drivers for on-chip peripherals and external devices over interfaces such as SPI, I2C, UART, Ethernet, and CAN.
Hands-on board bring-up and debugging experience, including reading schematics and datasheets and using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and JTAG/SWD debuggers.
Experience designing interrupt-driven, real-time firmware, either bare-metal or on an RTOS.
Experience writing automated tests for firmware and working with Git and CI/CD.
Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer, Electrical, Software, Aerospace, or a related engineering field, or equivalent practical experience.
Applicants must meet the stated ITAR eligibility criteria: be a U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, refugee, or asylee, or be eligible to obtain the necessary U.S. Department of State authorizations.

Nice To Haves

Experience writing bootloaders and in-field or over-the-air firmware update systems.
Experience working in small teams with a high degree of project ownership.
Familiarity with radiation effects on electronics and mitigations such as EDAC/ECC, memory scrubbing, latch-up protection, and redundancy.
Familiarity with embedded Linux and how microcontroller firmware interfaces with a Linux host.
Experience with FPGAs or mixed-signal electronics, including ADC/DAC interfacing.
Experience developing and testing hardware for SmallSats or CubeSats.
Experience with hardware-in-the-loop integration and testing.
Python scripting experience for test automation and lab tooling.

Responsibilities

Design, develop, and test embedded firmware for microcontroller-based spacecraft subsystems, including payload control, power, and attitude sensing and actuation electronics.
Develop bare-metal and RTOS firmware, including device drivers, peripheral configuration, interrupt handling, and hardware abstraction layers.
Partner with Electrical Engineering on schematic and design reviews, board bring-up, and debugging new hardware revisions.
Implement communications with satellite devices and electronics using CAN, I2C, SPI, UART, RS-422, RS-485, and other protocols.
Define and implement command, telemetry, and data interfaces between microcontroller firmware and flight software.
Build bootloaders and firmware update mechanisms suitable for safe use over a low-bandwidth radio link, including fallback images and recovery paths.
Design for on-orbit fault tolerance using watchdogs, brown-out and reset handling, memory protection and error detection, and graceful degradation.
Debug hardware and firmware integration issues using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG/SWD debuggers, and other lab equipment.
Develop unit, hardware-in-the-loop, and flatsat firmware tests and integrate them into CI pipelines.
Participate in design and code reviews and document firmware designs, interfaces, and test procedures.
Support spacecraft integration, environmental testing, and on-orbit operations as needed.