Senior Robotics Firmware Engineer

Nimble Robotics•San Francisco, CA

10d•$180,000 - $230,000

About The Position

We are looking for a Senior Robotics Firmware Engineer to build the core firmware powering our next-generation autonomous robots. In this role, you will develop the systems that allow our robots to operate with exceptional reliability, precision, and efficiency in real production environments. You will work across robot control, sensing and runtime execution — building robust, production-grade firmware that scales as we deploy more robots into high-throughput warehouse operations. You’ll collaborate closely with our hardware, AI, and infrastructure teams to integrate frontier AI capabilities into practical, real-world robotics systems and to continually improve robot uptime, performance, and overall intelligence.

Requirements

Bachelor, Master, or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, or a related engineering field.
Strong experience with embedded firmware domains, e.g. real-time control, motor or actuator drive, sensor interfacing, and communication protocols
4+ years of firmware or embedded systems engineering experience building production robotics or automation systems.
Strong proficiency in at least one of the following programming languages: Rust, C, C++.
Experience developing on microcontrollers with real-time constraints, whether RTOS-based or bare-metal.
Experience integrating firmware with sensors, actuators, and communication buses such as CAN, SPI, I²C, and UART.
Proven ability to design, implement, and maintain complex, high-reliability embedded systems.
Familiarity with software best practices including testing, documentation, code reviews, and robust architectural design.
Excellent communication, ownership, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
Willingness to support production operations through an on-call rotation.

Nice To Haves

Exposure to automation environments such as warehousing, manufacturing, or logistics
Experience with multi-DOF robotics system, e.g. articulated arms, humanoid, autonomous vehicles.
Experience with motor control techniques such as field-oriented control, commutation, and encoder calibration.
Experience with functional-safety standards and safe design, e.g. IEC 60204-1 stop categories, ISO 13849, or IEC 61508.

Responsibilities

Lead design and implementation of embedded firmware for real-time motor and actuator control, sensor integration, manipulation, and safe, high-reliability operation.
Own the low-level communication between microcontrollers and peripherals or higher-level compute stack, including CAN/CAN-FD, serial buses, and Ethernet, ensuring deterministic, low-latency, and robust behavior.
Design safe-state and fault handling behavior for safety-critical subsystems.
Partner closely with electrical and hardware engineering on board bring-up and software–hardware integration for new robot platforms and upgrades.
Improve actuation and control performance, such as latency, precision, and reliability, using measurable metrics and data-driven iteration.
Debug and resolve issues across development, HIL testing and production environments.
Participate in and lead technical design reviews and drive architecture decisions for core embedded systems.
Mentor cross-functional engineers and technicians, and raise the bar on firmware reliability, testing, and operational excellence.
Triage firmware-related issues to ensure reliability of production robots, and help diagnose and resolve operational issues when they arise