Senior Firmware Automation Engineer

Samsara•San Francisco, CA

13h•Hybrid

About The Position

Samsara is seeking a self-driven Senior Automation Engineer to join their fast-growing Smart Trailers and Connected Equipment team. This role is responsible for the automated systems ensuring the integrity of asset gateway and sensor product lines. The position is hybrid, based in San Francisco, with three days per week required in the office. The Automation Engineering team uses cutting-edge engineering processes and data analysis to drive product excellence, aiming to cultivate an automation-first culture for best-in-class reliability, usability, and performance. This role operates where code meets hardware, orchestrating high-performance Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) environments.

Requirements

5+ years of experience in embedded systems or firmware automation engineering.
Hands-on expertise building and maintaining HIL environments and custom automated frameworks for physical devices.
Solid experience automating RTOS-based embedded systems (Zephyr, FreeRTOS, or similar).
High proficiency in Python for sophisticated framework architecture and test development.
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines (Buildkite, Jenkins), version control (Git), and scalable automation architectures.
Proven ability to perform low-level troubleshooting and root cause analysis on complex embedded hardware.

Nice To Haves

A Product & Owner Mindset: You are obsessed with the "why." You possess deep customer empathy, take full accountability for end-to-end outcomes, and proactively adapt based on feedback to ensure long-term success.
Experience with Agentic workflows to enable rapid automation prototyping and autonomous development.
Strong knowledge of Cellular, GPS, BLE, WiFi, and CAN technologies and their associated automation and debug practices.
Experience with Unix/Linux system network automation and reliability engineering.
Experience with hardware debugging tools (logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, J-Link) to assist in automation development.
Bachelor’s degree or higher in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
A track record of thriving in high-growth, fast-paced technology organizations.

Responsibilities

Partner with firmware development and product teams to define automation goals, expand coverage, and ensure high-velocity, high-integrity firmware releases.
Develop and execute comprehensive automated suites targeting RTOS-based embedded systems, including the programmatic validation of connectivity stacks (Cellular, GPS, BLE, WiFi, CAN).
Scale automation infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, and reporting tools to accelerate release cycles and maximize autonomous coverage.
Perform in-depth root cause analysis on failures identified through automated frameworks and system stress testing.
Support field validation through automated log analysis and issue triage to ensure firmware resilience in real-world industrial deployments.
Champion and embed Samsara’s cultural principles as we scale our automation capabilities globally.