Senior Memory Subsystem Firmware Engineer
NVIDIA Corporation · Santa Clara, CA
$152,000–$241,500from the description
Jun 28, 2026
Santa Clara, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role sits at the hardware/software boundary within a memory subsystem team, covering the full arc from architecture and pre-silicon validation through production silicon. Day-to-day work involves writing bare-metal C/C++ firmware for DDR/LPDDR initialization, DRAM training, low-power states, and RAS, as well as building C models for pre-silicon validation and supporting lab bring-up. It suits an embedded firmware engineer with a strong grounding in computer architecture and hardware debugging.
Mid level · 3+ years · Santa Clara, CA · Full-time
Advertised as Senior, but the requirements read as Mid.
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
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 2,550 people in the Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 1,350–3,300
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
What the occupation pays Median $213,110 (middle half $173,650–$226,080). 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 (6)
The posting is titled 'Senior Firmware Engineer' but requires only 3+ years of experience (with internship/new-grad time counting toward the low end), which aligns more closely with a Mid-level role on a standard career ladder.
The degree requirement lists BS or MS but explicitly accepts 'equivalent experience,' so no formal degree is treated as a hard gate.
DDR/LPDDR/HBM, RTOS/bare-metal, and SoC boot architecture all appear under the 'Ways to stand out from the crowd' section, making them preferred rather than required.
The SOC classification is Medium confidence: embedded firmware sits at the hardware/software boundary and could reasonably map to 15-1299 (Computer Occupations, All Other), but the primary day-to-day work — writing C/C++ firmware, C models, and software validation — is most consistent with 15-1252 Software Developers.
The posting is marked #LI-Hybrid; the exact work location is not specified but NVIDIA's primary campus is in Santa Clara, CA, used as the CBSA.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): SoC boot architecture.
Read the full posting
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