Platform Software Engineer III

Evolv Technologies Inc.•Waltham, MA

7d•$114,000 - $184,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Are you looking for a role that has meaning and purpose on a team that is crafting the future of security? Evolv’s R&D team is looking for an experienced and innovative Platform Software Engineer to provide technical leadership, improve software engineering practices, and be hands on with our team of SW engineers with expertise in embedded, real-time, and computer vision. In Evolv's fast-paced development environment, the R&D team is continuously innovating new features and integrating complementary technologies into our products. We're looking for a senior embedded Linux developer who can own the platform from the ground up — bringing up a custom Yocto-based Linux distribution, writing and debugging kernel drivers, and building the secure boot and provisioning pipeline that ships with our hardware. You'll work directly with Electrical Engineering Hardware Engineers to translate schematics into working device drivers and device tree configurations, and partner closely with our senior IC on peripheral architecture and automated validation.

Requirements

10+ years of professional embedded/firmware software development experience.
Deep hands-on experience building embedded Linux systems with Yocto (bitbake, layers, recipes, image customization) — ideally including a from-scratch board bring-up.
Strong Linux kernel driver development and debugging experience (character/platform drivers, interrupt handling, DMA).
Working knowledge of Device Tree syntax, bindings, and Yocto-based DT configuration/overlay workflows.
Proficiency in C and C++17 for embedded/Linux development.
Solid digital hardware fundamentals — comfortable reading schematics, using a scope/logic analyzer, and reasoning about I2C/SPI bus timing and electrical behavior.
Direct experience with I2C and SPI Linux driver development on an SoC.
Experience with secure boot, image signing, or device provisioning on embedded Linux platforms.
Comfortable working cross-functionally with EE teams to turn hardware requirements into software.

Nice To Haves

Demonstrate technical depth and earn the respect of senior developers.
Learn the product's hardware architecture.
Review existing code and software architecture.
Get hands-on in Yocto, contributing to Evolv's custom Linux distribution.
Ship production-quality pull requests for small-to-medium features, with your first landing by day 30–45.
Assess the current product roadmap, BSP structure, and repository organization, and outline a platform strategy so future product lines share a common, reliable software foundation.
Actively contribute to architecture and design discussions, surfacing risks and improvements.
Evaluate the current CI/CD and build-automation setup and land at least one concrete improvement.
Get fluent in Evolv's full software development lifecycle, including DevOps, QA, and hardware integration touchpoints.
Own the architecture of reusable, enterprise-grade C++ platforms — modular, cleanly abstracted, and built for reuse across product lines (see "Enterprise-Level Software Development" below for the full scope).
Mentor others, shaping technical direction, and building scalable platforms in a collaborative environment.

Responsibilities

Maintain ownership of the OS layer build process, constructing and optimizing custom Yocto recipes, layers, and configurations.
Write, modify, and optimize Linux kernel device trees to map custom hardware peripherals and ensure clean boot routines.
Debug low-level Linux kernel issues (boot failures, driver crashes, interrupt/DMA issues) using standard embedded Linux tooling (JTAG, serial console, kernel logs, ftrace/perf).
Own the secure boot and provisioning pipeline end to end — signed images, secure key storage/injection, fused security state — from design through production readiness.
Diagnose hardware-software interface boundaries, including real-time timing constraints, power profiles, and thermal behavior.
Design and implement real-time systems interfacing with Linux on an SoC, meeting deterministic, low-latency requirements.
Design reusable, enterprise-grade C++ software - modular component reuse and clean API abstraction, built for longevity across multiple product lines.
Manage component versioning, dependency trees, and decoupling strategies in resource-constrained environments.
Write production-quality C/C++17 for both user-space applications and kernel-adjacent components.
Apply advanced design patterns and object-oriented principles to keep core libraries scalable and maintainable.
Build multithreaded applications using modern C++ concurrency primitives, thread synchronization, and lock-free techniques.
Write clean, well-documented, testable code; maintain quality through peer review and unit/functional testing.
Thoroughly document requirements, design intent, and validation data.
Use AI coding assistants (e.g., Claude) to accelerate development, testing, and documentation across the software lifecycle.
Build and maintain Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) test rigs and automated validation strategies to catch regressions at the hardware layer.
Bring up raw prototype boards in the lab, using bench instrumentation (oscilloscope, logic analyzer, multimeter) to root-cause signal-level issues.
Build Python-based scripting frameworks to automate test execution, parse hardware logs, and orchestrate system-level test behavior.
Partner with EE/hardware teams throughout the product lifecycle — schematic review, component selection, and physical layout constraints.
Work with manufacturing to scale the provisioning process into production.
Support build automation, CI/CD pipelines, and SQA.
Provide technical leadership, improve software engineering practices, and be hands on with the team.
Lead at least one internal technical workshop or knowledge-sharing session.
Improve cross-functional workflows around testing, deployment, and system reliability.
Help define and enforce coding standards and best practices across the team.
Weigh in on long-term architectural decisions and product roadmap planning.
Foster a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, and psychological safety.