Embedded Systems Developer, Cyber Research

About the role

Battelle is seeking an Embedded Systems Developer to support our Cyber research teams in our Columbus, OH or Chantilly, VA locations. The role involves developing low-level firmware, instrumentation, and tooling to support reverse engineering and vulnerability research efforts, modifying existing firmware and embedded software for analysis, debugging, and experimentation, and building internal tools and automation pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Develop low-level firmware, instrumentation, and tooling to support reverse engineering and vulnerability research efforts
• Modify existing firmware and embedded software to enable analysis, debugging, and experimentation
• Build internal tools and automation pipelines that assist researchers working with embedded devices
• Interface directly with hardware platforms including microcontrollers, SoCs, and custom embedded systems
• Develop scripts and utilities to support firmware extraction, analysis workflows, and device interaction
• Auxiliary vulnerability researchers with debugging complex behaviors across embedded platforms
• Work closely with reverse engineers to understand system behavior and design tools that improve analysis capabilities
• Prototype and test techniques for interacting with embedded systems including debugging interfaces and emulation environments
• Contribute to collaborative research efforts across multidisciplinary teams

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related field with 5 years of experience; or Master’s degree with 2 years of experience; or PhD in related field; or equivalent combination of education and experience
• Strong experience developing software for embedded systems in C or C++
• Experience working with microcontrollers, SoCs, or embedded Linux systems
• Familiarity with assembly language for common embedded architectures (ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, etc.)
• Ability to analyze firmware behavior and modify embedded software for testing or instrumentation
• Ability to work individually and within small fast-paced research teams
• Passion for understanding how complex systems work at a low level
• US Citizen with the ability and willingness to obtain a DoD Secret or higher clearance

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working with firmware extraction or firmware analysis workflows
• Familiarity with reverse engineering tools such as Ghidra, IDA Pro, or BinaryNinja
• Experience working with embedded operating systems such as Linux, VxWorks, QNX, or RTOS environments
• Experience with hardware interfaces such as UART, SPI, I2C, JTAG, or SWD
• Experience emulating embedded systems or developing simulation environments
• Experience building internal developer tools or research tooling
• Experience supporting security research, vulnerability research, or hardware security analysis