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Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer Jobs in California

Lunar Energy

Principal Firmware Engineer

Mountain View, CA · On-site

$230K - $260K/yr

Principal Embedded firmware engineer As an Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer, you'll play a central role in shaping the intelligence inside our hardware, writing the code that makes our devices ...

Lunar Energy

Principal Firmware Engineer

Mountain View, CA · On-site

$230K - $260K/yr

Principal Embedded firmware engineer As an Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer, you'll play a central role in shaping the intelligence inside our hardware, writing the code that makes our devices ...

Electric Hydrogen

Embedded Firmware Engineer

San Jose, CA · Hybrid

$120K - $165K/yr

We are seeking an Embedded Firmware Engineer to develop real-time firmware for our power electronics products as well as auxiliary (non-power) electronics. This role will work across the full ...

Sophia Space

Embedded Firmware Engineer

Pasadena, CA · On-site

$112K - $153K/yr

Senior Embedded Firmware Engineer (Avionics / Platform Interface) Level: Engineer IV Location: In Person We are seeking a Senior Embedded Firmware Engineer to develop and integrate flight-critical ...

SERES

Embedded Firmware Engineer

Milpitas, CA · On-site

$80K - $120K/yr

Embedded Firmware Engineer Duties and Responsibilities * Develop and maintain firmware on STM32 / TI / Renesas MCU platforms * Implement and debug low-level drivers (ADC, GPIO, PWM, SPI, I2C, UART ...

HP IQ

Senior Embedded Firmware Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$140K - $225K/yr

About The Role HP IQ's Connectivity team is seeking an Embedded Firmware Engineer with strong hands-on experience across RTOS and embedded Linux platforms. You'll bring up new hardware, develop and ...

SERES

Embedded Firmware Engineer

Milpitas, CA

$80K - $120K/yr

Embedded Firmware Engineer Duties and Responsibilities * Develop and maintain firmware on STM32 / TI / Renesas MCU platforms * Implement and debug low-level drivers (ADC, GPIO, PWM, SPI, I2C, UART ...

Mosaic.tech

Embedded Firmware Engineer

Costa Mesa, CA · On-site

$166K - $220K/yr

About the Role We are looking for a Firmware Engineer to develop low-level embedded software and help build the tests that verify it works. You'll work alongside senior engineers to update ...

Electric Hydrogen

Embedded Firmware Engineer

San Jose, CA · On-site

$154K - $181K/yr

We are seeking an Embedded Firmware Engineer to develop real-time firmware for our power electronics products as well as auxiliary (non-power) electronics. This role will work across the full ...

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All JobsPrincipal Embedded Firmware Engineer JobsPrincipal Embedded Firmware Engineer Jobs in California

Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer information

See California salary details

$72.5K

$120.4K

$161.9K

How much do principal embedded firmware engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Sep 9, 2026, the average yearly pay for principal embedded firmware engineer in California is $120,410.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $101,700.00 and $139,200.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is the difference between Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer vs Embedded Software Engineer?

AspectPrincipal Embedded Firmware EngineerEmbedded Software Engineer
CredentialsBachelor's/Master's in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science; extensive experienceBachelor's in related field; entry to mid-level experience
Work EnvironmentDesigning firmware for embedded systems, leading projectsDeveloping and testing embedded software components
Industry UsageAutomotive, IoT, consumer electronics, medical devicesConsumer electronics, industrial automation, IoT

The Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer typically holds more experience, leads firmware development projects, and has a strategic role. In contrast, an Embedded Software Engineer focuses on coding and testing embedded software components. Both roles require strong technical skills, but the principal level involves leadership and advanced design responsibilities.

What cities in California are hiring for Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer jobs?

Cities in California with the most Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer job openings:

Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer jobs near you

Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer

Los Alamitos, CA • On-site

Hire Ventures, Inc.
Human Resources Consulting Services • 51 - 200 employees
Learn more about Hire Ventures, Inc.external

$150K - $200K/yr

Full-time

Posted 27 days ago

Job description

Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer - Rust and Connected Devices
About CI Solutions
CI Solutions develops secure identity and credentialing technology for schools and other organizations. Our products support student identification, card issuance, RFID and NFC credentials, connected readers, and integrations with the systems our clients use every day.
CR-One is our networked NFC/RFID reader platform. It supports student-ID, transportation, food service, access, attendance, and other credential-based programs. The first generation of CR-One readers is moving into customer and partner environments, and we are hiring an experienced firmware engineer to take technical ownership of the platform.
The role
We are looking for a Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer to own the CR-One firmware platform and the tools used to build, provision, release, update, and support it.
You will take ownership of an in-production system, develop a deep understanding of its architecture, keep the deployed fleet healthy, and extend it for future products and use cases. You will work closely with hardware, backend, product, manufacturing, technical services, and external engineering partners.
What you will work on
  • Embedded Rust device architecture
  • NFC RFID
  • Cellular, BLE, USB, and GNSS
  • Security and device lifecycle
  • Protocols and fleet tooling

Responsibilities
  • Take technical ownership of the CR-One firmware platform and its build, flash, provisioning, release, and update pipelines.
  • Safely extend and improve firmware running on devices in customer and partner environments.
  • Own the OTA release lifecycle, including signing, staged deployment, rollback, health validation, and incident response.
  • Diagnose firmware and hardware problems using logs, telemetry, serial traces, and controlled reproduction.
  • Improve reproducible builds, release documentation, and operational visibility.
  • Maintain backward compatibility across firmware versions, device configurations, and shared wire protocols.
  • Support factory programming, provisioning, production testing, hardware revisions, and manufacturing failure analysis.
  • Partner with backend and dashboard engineers on device configuration, telemetry, fleet health, and remote support.
  • Help define the firmware architecture for future CR-One generations.
  • Improve the system incrementally while continuing to deliver customer and partner capabilities.

Required qualifications
  • Strong professional in embedded systems, infrastructure, performance-sensitive, or similarly demanding software.
  • Substantial hands-on microcontroller firmware experience.
  • Experience with RTOS-based systems, interrupts, peripheral drivers, persistent state, and resource-constrained devices.
  • Ability to bring up and debug hardware directly from datasheets, register maps, and protocol specifications.
  • Experience supporting embedded product through production and after deployment.
  • Understanding of firmware release safety, OTA updates, device recovery, and field-failure investigation.
  • Strong bench-debugging skills.
  • Experience taking ownership of a large, evolving codebase and improving it without stopping delivery.
  • Sound engineering judgment and the ability to communicate clearly across firmware, hardware, backend, product, and operations teams.

Preferred experience
Experience in some of the following areas is valuable, but we do not expect candidates to have worked with every technology:
  • Embedded Rust or Rust on ESP-IDF.
  • ESP32, ESP-IDF, FreeRTOS, or comparable embedded platforms.
  • LTE-M, NB-IoT, Quectel, u-blox, or other cellular modem integrations.
  • MQTT, TLS, mutual TLS, PKI, X.509, and certificate enrollment.
  • NFC & RFID protocols, including ISO 14443, ISO 15693, MIFARE, DESFire, or NFC-V.
  • USB device stacks, HID, CDC, TinyUSB, BLE, and GNSS.
  • Secure boot, flash encryption, hardware provisioning, and protected key storage.
  • Differential or delta OTA systems.
  • Binary and JSON serialization formats.
  • Python, Bash, firmware release tooling, cross-compilation, and build automation.
  • MQTT-broker, or fleet-management experience.

Why Join CI Solutions
For more than 30 years, we have built our business by earning the trust of our customers, partners, and employees. We value long-term relationships, we approach our work with integrity and take pride in delivering solutions that customers rely on every day.
We are a small, agile, and fast-paced company that offers employees the opportunity to take ownership, drive improvements, work collaboratively across departments, and make a meaningful impact without layers of bureaucracy.
In this role, you will own the CR-One firmware platform and the decisions you make will directly shape how current and future devices are built, deployed and supported. This role is a strong fit for an engineer who enjoys ambitious embedded work, wants meaningful technical ownership, and is motivated by seeing hardware operate successfully in real customer environments.
* This role is not eligible for visa sponsorship *

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