Firmware Engineering Lead

Skip•San Francisco, CA

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

Skip is on a mission to make life joyful through powered movement. Movement is a powerful way to build physical, mental and social health. Yet it is elusive for 2 billion people due to age, injury, or disability. We are building products that will restore mobility for millions and enable a new frontier of joyful movement experiences. We want to build a future where a grandparent can easily outrun their grandkids and no one is left behind at the trailhead. Skip is a 22-person early-stage start-up that spun out of Google X in 2023. With deep cross-disciplinary expertise and key partnerships (e.g. with Arc’teryx) we are uniquely positioned to launch the first commercially successful wearable robotic device, the MO/GO, develop a platform to launch future Movewear products and transform millions of lives in the coming years. The Role: We're building powered wearable robots for everyday life — devices that sit at the intersection of motor control, real-time embedded systems, and edge compute. We're 22 people, all senior, all contributing directly to product. This role leads a small firmware team while staying hands-on with the systems that matter most. You'll set the technical bar for how we build firmware at Skip, and develop the engineers around you while doing it.

Requirements

8+ years in firmware development, with at least 2 leading or mentoring a team
Deep expertise in embedded C/C++ for high-performance, real-time applications including FreeRTOS
Proven experience with ESP32, STM32, or comparable chipsets
Strong background in AWS IoT Core, fleet management, and OTA systems
Solid Linux, Python, and command-line fluency
Experience with low-level hardware and OS internals at a kernel level
Rigorous debugging instincts across JTAG, SWD, oscilloscopes, and logic analyzers
The kind of technical credibility that makes people want to follow your lead, not just your title
Ability to work from our Bay Area office 3 days a week
Attention to detail, even in the middle of overly-long lists
Sense of humour. Tolerant of Aussie and Canadian spelling.

Nice To Haves

Experience with PMSM control on TI or STM chipsets
Background in robotics, powered consumer electronics, drones, or anything that moves
Familiarity with TFLite Micro or X-Cube-AI
Startup experience and comfort using AI coding tools to punch above your weight
Personal motivation to improve human movement
Good taste in music (Taylor Swift fan a plus)

Responsibilities

Leading and growing a small firmware engineering team, including hiring, mentorship, and technical direction
End-to-end embedded C/C++ across our stack, including FreeRTOS, interrupt handling, JTAG/SWD debugging, and chip bring-up
Data communication between peripherals and microcontrollers (ESP32, STM32 and their successors), including Wi-Fi and BLE
Secure OTA pipelines and bootloader implementation
AWS IoT Core infrastructure: mTLS, MQTT, fleet provisioning, IoT Jobs OTA
Firmware for motor control across a range of actuators including BLDCs, custom PMSM and axial flux motors, cycloid gearboxes, and series elastic actuators (currently on c2000, evolving)
Technical direction for chip selection, actuator firmware requirements, and future system architecture
Adjacent product development including our Parkinson's device and future clinical and research platforms requiring edge compute
Wearing prototypes several hours a week for on-body testing and data collection
Bringing joy to the team, participating in embarrassing team events, and tolerating KZ's terrible music