Senior Embedded Engineer, Connected Devices

Branch•Toronto, ON

13d•CA$100,000 - CA$130,000•Hybrid

About The Position

We're hiring a Senior Embedded Engineer to help us build the next generation of connected products at Branch. Our Connected Devices program is small, ambitious, and moving fast: we're shipping a new wave of products that bring intelligence and connectivity to the workday, and we need a hands-on technical leader who can take them from prototype to mass production alongside us. This is a rare role. You'll be the day-to-day technical counterpart to our Director of Product (Connected Devices), with a world-class senior hardware architect as your advisor and mentor. The architect operates at the level of design reviews, architectural design and manufacturing builds; you'll own the work that fills in the gaps: the bring-up, the bug hunts, the firmware features, the test fixtures, and the integration with our cloud and app teams. The ambition is for this person to grow into the technical lead for the program, across multiple Connected Devices projects.

Requirements

3+ years of professional experience as a firmware, embedded or hardware engineer, with at least one shipped consumer or commercial hardware product to your name
Strong C/C++ skills for embedded development on ARM Cortex-M class microcontrollers, ideally with hands-on experience on ESP32 (our default platform), Nordic nRF, STM32, or similar production-grade SoCs
Solid software engineering fundamentals: data structures, design patterns, modular code, and version control with git
Experience with embedded bus and peripheral protocols (SPI, I2C, UART, GPIO) and the debugging tools that come with them
Proficient in Python for test automation, manufacturing tooling, and hardware validation scripts
Experience with wireless protocols (BLE, Wi-Fi, Thread, Zigbee or similar)
Familiarity with IOT sensors: IMU, capacitive, load cell, presence, etc.
Hands-on hardware experience: comfortable with a soldering iron, a scope, a logic analyzer and a JTAG debugger; able to read a schematic and review a PCB layout
Comfort with the full hardware development lifecycle, including exposure to EVT, DVT and PVT stage-gates
Experience working with overseas design and manufacturing partners
Willingness to learn the parts of our stack you haven't touched yet; you don't need to know everything on day one, but you need confidence you can pick it up quickly
Clear, concise communicator; this is a small team and there's no room for hand-waving
Bias for action, ownership mindset, and a willingness to get your hands dirty
Optimistic and pragmatic relationship with AI; eager to learn, use and push the frontier of what AI-assisted hardware development looks like
Energy and positivity; you want to be in the garage with a small team building something real
We don’t care about your educational background, we care what you’ve built; nonlinear career paths are awesome and encouraged to apply!

Nice To Haves

Experience designing low-power firmware for battery-powered products: sleep modes, charging behavior, and power budget tradeoffs
Experience taking a product through regulatory certification, particularly EMC validation (FCC, ISED, CE) and the test cycles that come with it
Experience with CI/CD pipelines and test-driven development in an embedded context
Experience with PCB design tools (Altium, KiCad, or similar) and contributing to schematic/layout reviews
Experience designing test fixtures and automation for manufacturing
Experience working in a startup environment where you've worn multiple hats and/or being a founder
Familiarity with mobile app and/or cloud integration patterns
Background in ergonomics, furniture, consumer durables or any other category where build quality matters as much as software polish
A passion for productivity, ergonomics and the built environment

Responsibilities

Lead the day-to-day firmware development for our connected products, from feature implementation to debugging to release management
Drive hardware bring-up on new revisions: power rails, clock validation, peripheral verification, and the unglamorous bench work that proves a board is alive
Own embedded development across our microcontroller stack, including wireless connectivity and the sensor integration that makes our products intelligent
Design and own the test fixtures we use in manufacturing; this is critical, infrequently glamorous work that makes or breaks production quality, and you should expect to lead it
Be the person on-call, on the factory floor, who makes sure manufacturing goes right the first time
Work hand-in-glove with our external design and manufacturing partners; set the bar for what we accept from them
Partner with our senior hardware architect on design reviews, firmware verification plans, and manufacturing builds, freeing them to focus on high-leverage initiatives
Plan and execute against EVT, DVT and PVT milestones, along with the documentation and process work that makes production-grade quality possible
Travel up to 20% of the time, including overseas, to design and manufacturing partners for hands-on builds and issue resolution
Work closely with our product, industrial design, app and cloud teams to make sure the hardware, firmware and customer experience all line up
Use AI tools (including Claude) aggressively to accelerate development, automate repetitive work, and lift the team's overall velocity

Benefits

$100,000–$130,000 CAD base, negotiable based on experience
Equity in a growth-stage company
Comprehensive health, dental, and vision benefits
Unlimited paid time off and company holidays
A clear growth path: this role is built to grow into the technical lead for our Connected Devices program across multiple products
A small, high-agency team where your work shows up in the product in days, not quarters
An AI-forward toolset (Claude and more) with a mandate to use it aggressively

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