Staff Engineer - Firmware

Vector Atomic•Pleasanton, CA

18h•Onsite

About The Position

Vector Atomic, an IonQ company, is building quantum technology to transform navigation, timing, geophysical exploration, and telecommunications. Our team of engineers, scientists, software developers, and operations professionals works together to solve complex challenges and turn bold ideas into real-world solutions. We value collaboration, curiosity, and diverse perspectives, and we give every team member the opportunity to make an immediate impact while growing their skills. If you’re excited to work on breakthrough technology in a fast-paced, hands-on environment, we’d love to hear from you.

Requirements

Electrical Engineering/Computer Engineering/Computer Science Graduate, BS/MS Degree with 8-12 years of related work experience, or PhD with 8+ years of experience.
To comply with the US export control laws, Vector Atomic employees must be U.S. citizens (born or naturalized), lawful U.S. permanent residents (green card holders), and certain categories of refugees, and asylees.
Must be comfortable working in a laboratory environment.
Proven ability to lead technical initiatives and influence engineering decisions across teams.
Excellent communication skills with ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences, both written and verbal.
Demonstrated expertise in system architecture and design of complex embedded systems.
Extensive experience in developing production Rust systems, including async runtimes, concurrency patterns, and performance optimization.
Deep understanding of hardware-software interfaces including TCP, UART, MMAP, and low-level system programming.
Proven ability to architect and design complex software systems from the ground up.
Strong debugging and troubleshooting skills using various tools including debuggers, profilers, and simulation.
Experience mentoring and leading other engineers in technical growth.

Nice To Haves

Experience in Rust 🦀, on bare-metal or embedded Linux.
Experience in Python, including common scientific libraries and building developer tools.
Expert-level understanding of control algorithms such as PID, state-space controllers, and adaptive control.
Design training/expertise with fixed-point algorithms, DSP, and digital filters.
Extensive experience interfacing with external devices through multiple protocols (TCP, UART, SPI, I2C, etc.).
Experience in C/C++ and understanding of systems programming across multiple languages.
Strong background working with SoC/FPGA devices and hardware-software co-design.
Experience with Linux kernel development and device drivers.
Comfortable using test and measurement equipment to confirm coding performance. This includes oscilloscopes, function generators and voltmeters.
Experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing frameworks, and development infrastructure.

Responsibilities

Provide technical leadership and architectural direction for real-time control systems across multiple projects.
Write production-quality code in C/C++ and establish coding standards and best practices for the team.
Work with and mentor a cross-functional team of physicists, electronics engineers, and firmware engineers to create next-generation quantum instruments.
Design and architect system controllers on ARM SoC. Lead development of user-space drivers, data acquisition pipelines, and robust control loops with reliable error handling.
Define and implement control algorithms essential to operation of precision sensing instruments.
Architect libraries and frameworks for control of quantum systems that can be reused across projects.
Lead technical discussions with hardware engineers and drive board testing and hardware bring up strategies.
Mentor junior and senior engineers through code reviews, pair programming, and technical guidance.
Drive continuous improvement of our development process, tooling, and infrastructure.
Represent the team in cross-functional technical reviews, architecture discussions, and strategic planning sessions.