Firmware Engineer
WindBorne Systems · Palo Alto, CA
$100,000–$200,000from the description
Jul 5, 2026
Palo Alto, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role centers on owning the full firmware stack for autonomous weather balloons that operate in extreme conditions — limited power, severe cold, and no easy path to over-the-air updates. Day-to-day work spans writing low-level drivers for sensors and chips, maintaining a custom open-source RTOS hardware abstraction layer, and debugging problems that cross hardware and software boundaries. It suits an embedded engineer comfortable in C/C++ who thrives on rapid iteration rather than upfront planning.
Senior level · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 1,400 people in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 740–1,850
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $217,796 (middle half $177,469–$231,052). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (8)
The role is titled 'Firmware Engineer' with no seniority modifier, but the scope — owning the entire firmware stack, setting firmware strategy, maintaining a custom RTOS HAL, and working across hardware/software boundaries in a real-world deployed system — supports a Senior classification.
C and C++ are listed together as a single fluency requirement; they are emitted as separate skills since both are genuinely distinct languages used in this stack.
Embedded firmware development and low-level driver development are listed as hard requirements under Skills and Qualifications, even though no specific chip or platform is named.
PCB schematic reading and some EE design work are explicitly required ('should be comfortable'), not merely preferred.
FPGAs/HDL, RF systems/wireless protocols, and a CS/EE degree are all listed under 'Nice to have' and are marked preferred accordingly.
The location is 1600 Bridge Parkway, Redwood City, CA — Redwood City falls within the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara CBSA (41940). In-person attendance is explicitly required.
The alt SOC 15-1299 (Computer Occupations, All Other) is noted because firmware/embedded engineering sits at the hardware-software boundary and is not always cleanly captured by the general Software Developers code, though 15-1252 is the best available fit.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): embedded firmware development, low-level driver development.
Read the full posting
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