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Firmware Engineering Lead

San Francisco · Senior · Full-time

Sponsorship not specifiedDetected 105 days ago
PythonC++AWSLinuxEmbedded SystemsRoboticsResearchCommunicationMentoringActuators

About the role

  • We're 22 people, all senior, all contributing directly to product.
  • Leading and growing a small firmware engineering team, including hiring, mentorship, and technical direction
  • End-to-end embedded C/C++ across our stack, including FreeRTOS, interrupt handling, JTAG/SWD debugging, and chip bring-up

Responsibilities

  • You'll set the technical bar for how we build firmware at Skip, and develop the engineers around you while doing it.

Requirements

  • 8+ years in firmware development, with at least 2 leading or mentoring a team
  • Deep expertise in embedded C/C++ for high-performance, real-time applications including FreeRTOS
  • Proven experience with ESP32, STM32, or comparable chipsets
  • Experience with low-level hardware and OS internals at a kernel level
  • Ability to work from our Bay Area office 3 days a week

Nice to have

  • Experience with PMSM control on TI or STM chipsets
  • Background in robotics, powered consumer electronics, drones, or anything that moves
  • Familiarity with TFLite Micro or X-Cube-AI
  • Startup experience and comfort using AI coding tools to punch above your weight
  • Personal motivation to improve human movement

Company info

  • Skip is on a mission to make life joyful through powered movement.
  • Movement is a powerful way to build physical, mental and social health. Yet it is elusive for 2 billion people due to age, injury, or disability. We are building products that will restore mobility for millions and enable a new frontier of joyful movement experiences. We want to build a future where a grandparent can easily outrun their grandkids and no one is left behind at the trailhead.
  • Skip is a 22-person early-stage start-up that spun out of Google X in 2023. With deep cross-disciplinary expertise and key partnerships (e.g. with Arc'teryx) we are uniquely positioned to launch the first commercially successful wearable robotic device, the MO/GO, develop a platform to launch future Movewear products and transform millions of lives in the coming years.
  • The Role:
  • Movement is a powerful way to build physical, mental and social health.
  • Yet it is elusive for 2 billion people due to age, injury, or disability.
  • We are building products that will restore mobility for millions and enable a new frontier of joyful movement experiences.
  • We want to build a future where a grandparent can easily outrun their grandkids and no one is left behind at the trailhead.
  • Skip is a 22-person early-stage start-up that spun out of Google X in 2023.
  • With deep cross-disciplinary expertise and key partnerships (e.g. with Arc'teryx) we are uniquely positioned to launch the first commercially successful wearable robotic device, the MO/GO, develop a platform to launch future Movewear products and transform millions of lives in the coming years.
  • We're building powered wearable robots for everyday life - devices that sit at the intersection of motor control, real-time embedded systems, and edge compute.
  • This role leads a small firmware team while staying hands-on with the systems that matter most.
  • What you'll own:
  • Data communication between peripherals and microcontrollers (ESP32, STM32 and their successors), including Wi-Fi and BLE
  • Secure OTA pipelines and bootloader implementation
  • AWS IoT Core infrastructure: mTLS, MQTT, fleet provisioning, IoT Jobs OTA
  • Firmware for motor control across a range of actuators including BLDCs, custom PMSM and axial flux motors, cycloid gearboxes, and series elastic actuators (currently on c2000, evolving)
  • Technical direction for chip selection, actuator firmware requirements, and future system architecture
  • Adjacent product development including our Parkinson's device and future clinical and research platforms requiring edge compute
  • Wearing prototypes several hours a week for on-body testing and data collection
  • Bringing joy to the team, participating in embarrassing team events, and tolerating KZ's terrible music
  • What we're looking for:
  • Strong background in AWS IoT Core, fleet management, and OTA systems
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This listing is sourced directly from Skip's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.