Senior/Staff Firmware Engineer — Hardware Architecture

About 1X

We’re an AI and robotics company based in Palo Alto, California, on a mission to build a truly abundant society through general‑purpose robots capable of performing any kind of work autonomously.

We believe that to truly understand the world and grow in intelligence, humanoid robots must live and learn alongside us. That’s why we’re focused on developing friendly home robots designed to integrate seamlessly into everyday life.

We’re looking for curious, driven, and passionate people who want to help shape the future of robotics and AI. If this mission excites you, we’d be thrilled to hear from you and explore how you might contribute to our journey.

Role Overview

We are looking for a cross-functional Firmware / Embedded Engineer to develop and maintain
low-level firmware that supports and enables system-level hardware architecture. In this role,
you will focus on robust, maintainable, and well-structured embedded software that spans
multiple hardware domains and directly informs architectural decisions.

You will work closely with hardware architects, electrical engineers, systems engineers, and test
engineers to ensure firmware reliably bridges hardware capabilities and higher-level system
requirements across prototype and production platforms.

The system is a humanoid robot with 20+ distributed embedded nodes that must communicate
deterministically, fail safely, and operate continuously in uncontrolled environments. This is a
new product category. Established playbooks from adjacent industries are useful starting points,
but many of the problems you will encounter do not have known solutions. The ideal candidate
reasons from first principles, works comfortably at the boundary between firmware and
hardware, and is energized rather than frustrated by problems that require novel approaches.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain firmware for the deterministic communication bus connecting 20+
  embedded nodes to a central controller, including cyclic data exchange, distributed clock
  synchronization, and protocol state management

• Design real-time data interfaces and acyclic communication channels for device
  configuration, parameterization, and runtime diagnostics

• Architect safety communication firmware that delivers safe shutdown commands within
  deterministic time bounds, using black channel principles (independent CRC, watchdog,
  sequence validation) over untrusted transport

• Responsible for the testing, validation, and verification of initial firmware releases to
  ensure functionality, reliability, and performance requirements are met

• Integrate network-based safety functions with hardware mechanisms including external
  watchdogs, gate driver enables, and hardwired safe-state paths

• Collaborate with hardware architects to define interfaces, requirements, and trade-offs;
  support bring-up, integration, and debugging of new platforms

• Implement drivers and hardware abstraction layers for embedded bus interface

• (CAN,CANopen, SPI, I²C, UART) used for communication with battery management, sensors,
  and peripheral ICs.

• Design secure bootloader architecture with cryptographic signing and validated rollback
  for firmware updates delivered over the communication bus

• Develop diagnostic and telemetry infrastructure: logging, error counters, communication
  statistics, and DFT hooks for production end-of-line validation

• Evaluate network topology and redundancy strategies for production, considering failure
  domain isolation and physical routing constraints within a mobile form factor

• Document firmware architecture, interfaces, and assumptions; improve code structure,
  readability, and maintainability
  

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a
  related field

• 7+ years of industry experience with embedded systems and real-time firmware
  development

• Proficiency in C and C++ for embedded targets

• Deterministic communication experience — production-level work implementing,
  debugging, or substantially modifying a real-time communication stack on embedded
  hardware. The candidate should understand at a fundamental level how cyclic data
  exchange, clock synchronization, and protocol state machines work, regardless of which
  specific protocol was used.

• Real-time embedded firmware in bare-metal or minimal-RTOS environments, with
  direct management of interrupt priorities, DMA transfers, shared-memory coherency,
  and timing-critical ISR execution

• Embedded bus fluency — hands-on experience with CAN/CANopen plus additional
  embedded interfaces (SPI, I²C, UART, RS-485), demonstrating breadth across
  communication domains

• Hardware debug at the firmware boundary — experience using oscilloscopes, logic
  analyzers, and packet capture tools to diagnose problems that span firmware behavior
  and electrical signaling

• Schematic literacy — ability to read transceiver circuits, PHY interfaces, signal-level
  translation, and power sequencing without requiring hardware engineering interpretation

• Firmware update / bootloader experience — design or maintenance of a production
  firmware update mechanism with integrity verification and rollback capability

• Comfortable debugging firmware on real hardware using standard lab tools

• Ability to collaborate closely across hardware, systems, and software teams

Preferred Qualifications

• First-principles problem solving — a track record of approaching unfamiliar problems
  by building understanding from fundamentals rather than relying solely on vendor
  documentation or established patterns. Many problems in this role do not have reference
  implementations.

• Safety-critical or fault-tolerant firmware — experience developing firmware where
  failure has physical consequences, in automotive, aerospace, medical, industrial, or
  defense applications. Familiarity with safety integrity concepts (SIL, ASIL, DAL) and
  standards such as IEC 61508, ISO 26262, or DO-178C.

• Safety-over-network protocols — implementation of any protocol that carries safety
  commands over a communication bus using black channel principles

• Autonomous or mobile robotic systems — communication architectures in systems
  that move, where cabling is subject to mechanical stress and network topology must
  account for physical constraints

• Multi-node distributed systems — coordinating firmware behavior across many
  embedded nodes (10+) sharing a common bus, including enumeration, synchronization,
  and fault isolation

• Experience contributing to hardware architecture or system-level design decisions

• Familiarity with real-time operating systems (FreeRTOS, SafeRTOS, or similar)

• Experience supporting hardware through prototype and production phases

• Background in robotics or complex electromechanical systems

Benefits & Compensation

• Salary Range: $200,000 - $250,000 + Equity

• Health, dental, and vision insurance

• 401(k) with company match

• Paid time off and holidays

Equal Opportunity Employer

1X is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, marital status, medical condition, genetic information, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local law.