Senior Embedded Engineer - Motor-control firmware

Senior Embedded Software Engineer - Motor Control

Location: Long Beach, California (On-site)

Employment type: Full time

Compensation: $155,000-$221,000, plus equity and benefits

Position overview

Our client is an engineering-led technology company developing advanced embedded systems for demanding, high-reliability environments.

They are seeking an experienced motor-control firmware engineer to own the embedded software for a new microcontroller-based actuation subsystem. The role spans board-support software, real-time scheduling, peripheral integration, control state machines, protection behaviour, closed-loop control algorithms and integration with power electronics.

This is a hands-on individual-contributor position with end-to-end technical ownership, from early requirements and architecture through hardware bring-up, control tuning, verification, field support and continued improvement. You will work closely with embedded, electrical, power-electronics, controls and test engineers.

Responsibilities

• Own the motor-control software subsystem from initial requirements and architecture through production-ready implementation and ongoing support.
• Develop bare-metal and/or RTOS-based firmware for a microcontroller-based motor-control system.
• Create and maintain MCU board-support packages, low-level drivers and peripheral interfaces.
• Configure and debug timers, PWM generation, ADCs, interrupts, DMA, memory and communication peripherals.
• Design deterministic real-time software under strict latency, jitter, timing, memory and compute constraints.
• Develop control state machines, operating modes, fault handling, safe states and protection behaviour.
• Implement, tune and validate closed-loop motor-control algorithms.
• Integrate motor-control firmware with power electronics, sensors, communications interfaces and higher-level control systems.
• Bring up new boards in close collaboration with electrical and power-electronics engineers.
• Read schematics and component documentation, review hardware interfaces and diagnose hardware/software integration issues.
• Debug low-level problems involving control behaviour, timing, interrupts, DMA, concurrency, synchronisation, memory corruption and peripheral configuration.
• Use oscilloscopes, logic analysers, in-circuit debuggers and related laboratory tools to identify root causes.
• Develop unit, integration, software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop tests in collaboration with test engineering.
• Support laboratory and field testing, production testing, failure investigation and corrective improvements.
• Improve build automation, continuous integration, static analysis, profiling and automated testing.
• Produce concise engineering documentation, contribute to technical reviews and mentor other engineers while remaining hands-on.

Required qualifications

• Approximately five or more years of relevant embedded-software experience is preferred; demonstrated technical depth and delivery experience are more important than a specific tenure.
• Deep practical expertise in bare-metal and/or RTOS-based microcontroller development for real hardware systems.
• Strong proficiency in at least one low-level systems-programming language, such as C or C++.
• Practical experience developing firmware for motor control, motion control, power electronics or a closely related real-time control system.
• Experience implementing deterministic software under latency, jitter, timing, memory and performance constraints.
• Strong understanding of real-time scheduling, timers, interrupts, DMA, concurrency, synchronisation, memory management and peripheral control.
• Experience with control state machines, fault handling, safe-state behaviour and protection logic.
• Experience bringing up new MCU boards, reading schematics and debugging integrated hardware/software systems.
• Experience with common embedded communication protocols and bus architectures.
• Strong laboratory-debugging skills using oscilloscopes, logic analysers, in-circuit debuggers and related equipment.
• Experience writing maintainable production code, conducting code reviews, developing automated tests, using static analysis and profiling performance.
• Ability to work independently with incomplete information while collaborating closely across engineering disciplines.
• Willingness to support field testing when required.
• US. citizenship and eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.

Desirable experience

• Safety-critical, mission-critical or other high-reliability embedded products
• Taking a greenfield motor-control system through design, tuning, verification and operational deployment
• Advanced commutation and closed-loop control techniques
• Current, velocity and position-control loops
• Feedback sensors, signal conditioning and estimator integration
• Inverter control, power-stage protection and fault investigation
• Experience across multiple MCU and RTOS platforms
• HOOTL, SIL, HIL or HITL test environments
• Robotics, aerospace, automotive, industrial-control, medical, energy or similarly integrated electromechanical systems

Keywords: Senior Embedded Software Engineer, Motor Control, Embedded C, C++, Bare Metal, RTOS, Microcontrollers, Real-Time Firmware, PWM, ADC, DMA, Closed-Loop Control, Power Electronics, Board Bring-Up, HIL Testing and High-Reliability Systems