Principal Firmware Engineer

Reports to: Director of Engineering

Salary: $135,446.70 - $142,373 annually

We are hiring for an experienced Principal Firmware Engineer to join our company!

The Principal Firmware Engineer is a highly experienced professional with a deep understanding of embedded systems development. They are responsible for leading and guiding firmware projects, driving innovation, and providing technical expertise and thought leadership on behalf of Dojo Five. In support of the mission of Dojo Five, you will be working on both customer and internal projects.

This is a full-time, salaried and exempt position that will be working a hybrid schedule (if local in MN) or remotely (if non-local/outside of MN) and will be expected to be available and communicative during the company’s core work hours which is between 9:00am - 3:00pm CST. 

Responsibilities

• Set strategic direction for major advancements in modern best-practices for our clients and for DojoFive
• Develop, program, review, and test firmware, products, and electronics
• Expertise in C and C++, proficient with Rust
• Expertise with bare-metal and RTOSs and Embedded Linux 
• Expertise with git
• Design build systems, code repositories, and documentation policies
• Expertise with designing and implementing public-key encryption into systems
• Provide guidance for how to establish project expectations and successful follow through
• Provide technical guidance, career development coaching and mentorship, including but not limited to leading technical training
• Demonstrate and hold others accountable to the Dojo Five Values and Dojo Five Way
• Provide strategic guidance in branding outreach and marketing activities.
• Mentor other project leads
• Lead cross-functional teams to define project goals and requirements
• Lead various recruitment activities, group interviews and technical review, at least once per year
• Attend Dojo Five leadership training and development activities
• Provide strategic guidance to sales regarding Dojo Five's technical capabilities and producing estimations
• Manage work time independently

Core Values

• Always Learning: Constantly brings new information into the company that brings value to our employees and clients. Seen as a source of learning within the company.
• Humble Confidence: Guides others to act with humility and confidence in difficult situations. Facilitates crucial conversations internally and with clients. Dives into unknown technologies with ease and with successful results.
• Always Deliver: Recognizes project-level issues and resolves them quickly, delegating the tactical work so others can practice and learn.
• Push Boundaries: Successful at executing a disciplined risk-based project management approach. Champions deep understanding of client and team needs across the entire team.
• Give a Sh*t: Drives client and team to improve tools, techniques, and process to ultimately demonstrate improved project success across multiple projects. Champions institutionalizing learnings.
• Have Fun: Actively ensures a healthy, fun, and professional environment across multiple projects and at the company level. Demonstrates healthy work-life balance.

About the Company

Dojo Five offers products and consulting services to revolutionize the embedded firmware development industry. With over 335 years of combined expertise, Dojo Five helps companies optimize their embedded software development systems by integrating tools, techniques, and culture to deliver modern firmware for embedded systems.

We are on a mission to drive the firmware industry forward through “modern firmware” — the tools, techniques, culture, and technologies we believe support a joyful experience when envisioning, developing, and using embedded devices. Our vision is to modernize 10,000 embedded projects by the end of the decade!

Dojo Five provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.

Desired Qualifications

• At least 15 years of relevant professional experience in embedded systems development
• Programming Languages
• C and C++
• Python
• Rust
• Assembly (ARM, x86, PIC)
• Operating Systems
• Bare-metal
• FreeRTOS
• Zephyr
• VxWorks
• Linux (user-space applications)
• ThreadX
• bootloaders
• Protocols/Drivers
• UART/USART
• I2C
• SPI
• CAN/CAN-FD
• BLE
• USB
• Ethernet
• WiFi
• Cellular/LTE
• protobuf
• MQTT
• Flash
• Processors
• Various ARM cores
• Single, multi-core and heterogeneous SOCs
• Development Tools
• IDEs (VSCode, Eclipse, STM32CubeIDE)
• Docker/devcontainers
• Benchtop tools (scope, logic/protocol analyzers, power supplies, multimeter)
• git
• pytest
• Unit testing infrastructures (e.g. Unity/CMock/Ceedling, Google Test, gMock)
• CI/CD pipeline configuration
• Serial consoles (e.g. minicom, screen)
• CMake
• binutils

Who Should Apply? Someone who…

• Has a passion for best practices
• Has excellent people skills
• Enjoys working in an environment where they thrive on continuously learning new skills
• Enjoys working with early stage projects that are driven by non-embedded experts and can make a client’s vision into a reality
• Approaches challenges with optimism, curiosity and kindness
• Prioritizes outcome over ego
• Is a critical thinker and is able to fruitfully extract and discuss reasoning behind conclusions (their own and others’)
• Is a methodical problem-solver
• Is authentic and trust-worthy
• Has experience generating buy-ins from a wide range of stakeholders
• Has experience to not only identify technical and procedural risks, but multiple potential solutions and the ability to effectively communicate the pros and cons of each option
• Enjoys leading/influencing and working with people, but is also capable of working independently
• Relies on logical persuasion and influence instead of authority in order to get things done

• Life-Work Balance - Dojo Five understands that balancing life with work is crucial and important to feeling great about what you do
• Competitive salary
• Annual stipend provided for Learning & Development/Travel — one of our core values is “Always Learning”!
• Medical, Dental, Vision, Life - company pays about 3/4th of the cost!
• 100% employer paid short-term disability, long-term disability and life benefits
• 100% 401k match up to 4% of annual salary
• Working with a diverse group of firmware professionals
• Annual offsites and team events/activities