Senior Embedded Software Engineer

Location: Austin, TX (Compensation: 250k Base + High-Upside EquityOverviewWe are retained by a high-growth, venture-backed energy and distributed infrastructure company deploying residential-sited, battery-backed AI inferencing micro-datacenters. Their mandate is to scale distributed GPU compute faster than traditional data centers, targeting 10,000–20,000 edge nodes within 24 months. Because these nodes operate unstaffed in the field, out-of-band management is vital. We are hiring a Senior / Staff Embedded Software Engineer to take complete ownership of the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) stack.

The Mission: Near-Term: Demystify, customize, and stabilize commercial/OEM BMC solutions across initial multi-GPU hardware revisions. Build the telemetry, security, and remote-recovery pipelines required for zero-touch edge operations. Long-Term (2-Year Horizon): Lead the architecture, component selection, and bring-up of custom, in-house BMC silicon and boards, serving as the foundational lead to scale a dedicated server firmware team.

Core Responsibilities: Firmware Architecture: Develop and maintain embedded Linux BMC stacks (OpenBMC, AMI MegaRAC, or custom environments) running on high-density GPU platforms. Sideband Hardware Control: Manage direct sideband access to host CPUs, GPUs, memory, storage, PMICs, and PCIe controllers. Remote Management Protocols: Implement IPMI, Redfish, MCTP/PLDM, I2C/SMBus, SPI, eSPI, and UART for automated health monitoring, telemetry, and remote power cycling. Fail-Safe Edge Reliability: Build autonomous watchdogs, thermal throttling logic, and secure A/B OTA update mechanisms to guarantee nodes never brick in the field.

Key Requirements: Dedicated BMC Expertise: Direct production experience bringing up, debugging, and maintaining BMC firmware on server-class platforms (e.g., OpenBMC, Dell iDRAC, HP iLO, SuperMicro, AMI). This is a specialized domain role, not a generalist embedded SWE position. Low-Level Engineering: High proficiency in C, modern C++, or Rust in embedded Linux or RTOS environments. Hardware Communication: Hands-on command of hardware buses (I2C, I3C, SPI, eSPI, PCIe, SMBus, MCTP).Pragmatic Problem-Solving: Instinctive hardware bring-up and debugging skills (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, bus sniffers, UART) in a fast-paced environment free of corporate red tape.

Base Salary: $250,000+Meaningful equity invested annually over 5 years