Sr. Staff Engineer, Platform Firmware
About the role
Sr. Staff Engineer, Platform Firmware Engineer Location: San Jose, CA (On-site)
Ayar Labs is shattering AI data bottlenecks by moving data at the speed of light. As pioneers of co-packaged optics (CPO), we are using light instead of electricity to move data faster, further, and with a fraction of the energy needed to fuel the explosive growth of AI models.
We are seeking a Sr. Staff Platform Firmware Engineer to own the board-level and platform-emulation firmware used to enable, validate, and demonstrate Ayar Labs’ electro-photonic products. This role focuses on firmware running on STM32-based boards that emulate customer platforms, control external hardware, and validate embedded firmware running inside Ayar Labs’ and customers’ SoCs.
This is a highly system-oriented, hands-on role operating at the intersection of hardware, firmware, and customer platforms, with deep influence on board design, validation strategy, and customer enablement.
Responsibilities
- Own and evolve platform-level firmware running on STM32-based systems used for demos, validation, and customer enablement.
- Develop firmware that controls and monitors ADCs, DACs, regulators, laser modules, and other board-level components.
- Build and maintain firmware that emulates customer platforms, enabling realistic system behavior without requiring full customer SoCs.
- Support and scale firmware across multiple board designs, balancing reuse, configurability, and maintainability.
- Lead board bring-up and sign-off, working hands-on in the lab to validate functionality and readiness.
- Review schematics and PCB designs, providing actionable feedback to the hardware team when changes materially improve firmware robustness, testability, or system reliability.
- Cook up firmware that controls, exercises, and tests embedded firmware running inside Ayar Labs’ and customers’ SoCs.
- Partner with systems, validation, and customer-facing teams to debug complex cross-domain issues.
Requirements
- Strong experience with bare-metal platform firmware development in C.
- Hands-on experience with STM32 microcontrollers (or similar ARM-based MCUs).
- Proven experience with board bring-up, lab debugging, and hardware/firmware integration.
- Ability to review schematics and board designs and collaborate deeply with hardware teams.
- Experience supporting multiple hardware platforms within a shared firmware architecture.
- Proficiency with Git-based development workflows.
- Comfort operating in a fast-paced, startup environment with high ownership.
Preferred Skills
- Experience controlling power, analog, or optical subsystems (ADCs, DACs, regulators, lasers).
- Familiarity with CMIS or related optical module management protocols.
- Experience developing test, diagnostic, or platform-emulation firmware.
- Exposure to customer SoC platforms, boot flows, or system bring-up.
- Experience with Make-based build systems and Python-based tooling.
- Background in high-speed SerDes or photonics-adjacent systems.
Benefits
Note: No benefits section provided.
Pay
Salary range: $170,000 - $223,000
Schedule
Note: No schedule section provided.
Skills
Note: No skills section provided.
Benefits
Note: No benefits section provided.