At a glance
- Experience
- 8-12 years experience
- Workplace
- Remote
- Location
- Toronto
About the role
- The Principal Engineer will shape embedded firmware and software for advanced connectivity products, focusing on adaptive, reliable, and production-ready solutions. This role involves owning the firmware stack for analog connectivity and Ethernet retimer platforms, working across architecture, lab debug, and customer integration.
Responsibilities
- Own the embedded firmware stack from hardware abstraction and device drivers through management interfaces, diagnostics, and customer-facing APIs.
- Design firmware for adaptive equalization, gain control, calibration, link training, PLL/CDR feedback, thermal management, and device telemetry.
- Architect control algorithms, state machines, and tuning flows that manage analog and high-speed interfaces.
- Define software quality gates, validation criteria, and release practices from pre-silicon planning through production deployment.
- Debug firmware behavior across Ethernet configurations, link states, and failure modes by tracing interactions among Layer 1 PHY, SERDES, FEC/PCS, MAC, retimer, and gearbox components.
- Investigate register accesses, embedded SDK behavior, link state machines, PHY telemetry, and real-hardware measurements to identify root causes.
- Partner with system validation to develop test plans, automate characterization flows, and verify firmware across corner cases.
- Support customer bring-up, field issue triage, and deployment readiness.
- Set technical direction, lead architecture discussions, and balance performance, code size, maintainability, and time to market.
- Lead design reviews, code reviews, and mentor engineers.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
- 8–12 years of experience developing embedded firmware or software for resource-constrained systems.
- Strong embedded C/C++ skills.
- Deep knowledge of microcontroller architecture, memory-mapped peripherals, interrupt handling, and bare-metal firmware.
- Hands-on experience with Ethernet or high-speed connectivity devices (Layer 1 PHYs, SERDES, retimers, gearboxes, NICs, or switches).
- Solid understanding of physical-layer behavior, link state machines, register-level debug, and hardware/software integration.
- Experience with feedback systems, adaptive algorithms, calibration, or tuning of analog or mixed-signal subsystems.
- Proficiency with Microsoft-based development environments and Linux command-line tools (GCC, Clang, Make, Bash, GDB, Git).
- Clear written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving environment with ambiguity.
Preferred qualifications
- Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
- Python experience for test automation, debug tooling, data analysis, or lab workflows.
- Hands-on experience with Jenkins and CI/CD infrastructure.
- Familiarity with mixed-signal systems and analog signal paths (ADC/DAC, sensor readout, transimpedance amplifiers, CTLE/DFE, CDR/PLL, thermal control).
- Experience with retimer or gearbox firmware, SDK/API development, optical modules, or high-speed copper connectivity.
- Experience with Ethernet PHY subsystems, FEC, PMA, or signal-integrity analysis.
- Experience using oscilloscopes, BERTs, and logic analyzers.
- Familiarity with FPGA emulation, pre-silicon validation, RTOS, device drivers, coroutines, mentoring, or recruiting.
Benefits
- Salary range CAD $184,500 to CAD $205,000
- Eligible for discretionary bonus
- Incentives
- Benefits
Workplace
- Location: Toronto or Ottawa, Ontario (Remote).
- Occasional travel to San Jose headquarters approximately twice per year for chip bring-up and project coordination.
Skills
- C
- C++
- Embedded Firmware
- Ethernet
- SERDES
- PHY
- Retimers
- Python
- Linux
- Git
- Jenkins
- CI/CD
Show all 15 skills
- Mixed-signal
- Hardware Abstraction
- Bare-metal
