{"schemaVersion":"jobsearcher.job.v1","id":"bd2511bc5cda5cd58a9cc6ca","url":"https://jobsearcher.com/jobs/bd2511bc5cda5cd58a9cc6ca","canonicalUrl":"https://jobsearcher.com/jobs/bd2511bc5cda5cd58a9cc6ca","title":"Firmware Engineer","description":"About Human Archive\nHuman Archive is a research lab backed by Y Combinator focused on modeling human embodied intelligence.\nHumans are the most sophisticated biological systems we have ever observed, yet we still do not fully understand ourselves. Research into human physical intelligence — including the human hand, proprioception, and vision — remains largely unsolved. Our mission is to recover human embodied intelligence as a learned model. To achieve this, we build custom hardware products, deploy them globally at scale, and publish research. Today, our data is used for robotics and world modeling, but the broader opportunity is advancing scientific research into intelligence itself.\nFounded by Stanford and UC Berkeley researchers, we are lean, deeply technical, and operate at extreme speed, taking on unglamorous and conventionally impossible problems that directly unlock step-function gains in model capability.\nThe deployment of capable humanoids at scale will permanently redefine human labor. Undesirable physical work will disappear, and human effort will shift toward a new era of abundant creativity.\nWe are building the infrastructure to accelerate that transition by assembling the Human Archive mafia. You will own meaningful systems from day one and see your work directly impact model capabilities. This is a once-in-a-generation inflection point. If you want to help reshape physical labor and work on problems that matter at civilizational scale, join us.\nWhat you'll work on\nWe're hiring a firmware engineer to own the embedded software stack on our wearable capture hardware. Close-to-the-metal work at the intersection of high-bandwidth sensor data, precise timing, and constrained-power embedded compute. You read schematics, debug buses, and know when the bug is in firmware versus when it's in hardware.\nSystem architecture\nFirmware architecture on embedded Linux on ARM\nSystem state machines: boot, capture, idle, fault recovery\nPower management states and low-power transitions\nSensor integration and timing\nDrivers for cameras, IMUs, microphones, environmental sensors\nSub-millisecond cross-sensor synchronization\nHardware-level timestamping infrastructure\nReal-time sensor data alignment\nLightweight on-device fusion for orientation and worn-state estimation (Kalman variants)\nData pipeline\nMulti-stream concurrent capture\nHardware video encoder pipelines\nHigh-throughput storage writes\nIndustry-standard delivery format packing\nConnectivity and fleet operations\nDevice-to-backend telemetry (battery, storage, session state, error events)\nSecure OTA firmware updates with signed images and rollback protection\nRemote configuration and fleet management commands\nCommunication protocols for device-cloud messaging (MQTT-over-TLS, HTTPS, WebSockets)\nHardware / software bring-up\nFirmware-side board bring-up alongside electrical engineers\nValidate hardware interfaces (I²C, SPI, USB, MIPI)\nDiagnose timing, power sequencing, and communication faults\nRequired technical experience\nStrong C/C++ for embedded systems on ARM\nPython for testing, tooling, and automation\nCamera driver experience (V4L2 or equivalent)\nDeep familiarity with embedded interfaces: MIPI CSI-2, I²C, SPI, USB, interrupts\nComfortable reading schematics and datasheets\nSystems and concurrency\nInterrupts, race conditions, memory constraints, real-time scheduling\nRTOS concepts and multi-threaded embedded environments\nStrong plus\nQualcomm, NXP, or Ambarella BSP experience\nSerDes driver integration\nHardware H.264 / H.265 encoder pipelines\nPrecise timing and synchronization (PTP, IEEE 1588)\nHigh-bandwidth data acquisition\nSensor fusion and Kalman filter implementation\nOTA infrastructure for deployed fleets\nIoT telemetry stacks (MQTT, AWS IoT, Azure IoT Hub, or similar)\nROS, MCAP, or Foxglove\nAbout this role Deep systems work. Long hours in the lab during board bring-up. Drivers nobody has written for the silicon you're working with. Firmware that runs unattended on real users for full shifts — and gets updated remotely without ever recalling a device.\nCompensation Range: CN¥80K - CN¥100K","company":"Human Archive","rawCompany":"human archive","city":"Millbrae","state":"CA","isRemote":false,"isActive":false,"createdAt":"2026-08-04T16:44:22.777Z","occupations":[{"code":"15-1299.08","title":"Computer Systems Engineers/Architects","slug":"computer-systems-engineers-architects"},{"code":"15-1252.00","title":"Software Developers","slug":"software-developers"},{"code":"17-2061.00","title":"Computer Hardware Engineers","slug":"computer-hardware-engineers"}],"industries":[{"code":"541512","title":"Computer Systems Design Services","slug":"computer-systems-design-services"},{"code":"513210","title":"Software Publishers","slug":"software-publishers"},{"code":"541715","title":"Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology)","slug":"research-and-development-in-the-physical-engineering-and-life-sciences-except-nanotechnology-and-biotechnology"}],"jobPosting":{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"JobPosting","title":"Firmware Engineer","description":"About Human Archive\nHuman Archive is a research lab backed by Y Combinator focused on modeling human embodied intelligence.\nHumans are the most sophisticated biological systems we have ever observed, yet we still do not fully understand ourselves. Research into human physical intelligence — including the human hand, proprioception, and vision — remains largely unsolved. Our mission is to recover human embodied intelligence as a learned model. To achieve this, we build custom hardware products, deploy them globally at scale, and publish research. Today, our data is used for robotics and world modeling, but the broader opportunity is advancing scientific research into intelligence itself.\nFounded by Stanford and UC Berkeley researchers, we are lean, deeply technical, and operate at extreme speed, taking on unglamorous and conventionally impossible problems that directly unlock step-function gains in model capability.\nThe deployment of capable humanoids at scale will permanently redefine human labor. Undesirable physical work will disappear, and human effort will shift toward a new era of abundant creativity.\nWe are building the infrastructure to accelerate that transition by assembling the Human Archive mafia. You will own meaningful systems from day one and see your work directly impact model capabilities. This is a once-in-a-generation inflection point. If you want to help reshape physical labor and work on problems that matter at civilizational scale, join us.\nWhat you'll work on\nWe're hiring a firmware engineer to own the embedded software stack on our wearable capture hardware. Close-to-the-metal work at the intersection of high-bandwidth sensor data, precise timing, and constrained-power embedded compute. You read schematics, debug buses, and know when the bug is in firmware versus when it's in hardware.\nSystem architecture\nFirmware architecture on embedded Linux on ARM\nSystem state machines: boot, capture, idle, fault recovery\nPower management states and low-power transitions\nSensor integration and timing\nDrivers for cameras, IMUs, microphones, environmental sensors\nSub-millisecond cross-sensor synchronization\nHardware-level timestamping infrastructure\nReal-time sensor data alignment\nLightweight on-device fusion for orientation and worn-state estimation (Kalman variants)\nData pipeline\nMulti-stream concurrent capture\nHardware video encoder pipelines\nHigh-throughput storage writes\nIndustry-standard delivery format packing\nConnectivity and fleet operations\nDevice-to-backend telemetry (battery, storage, session state, error events)\nSecure OTA firmware updates with signed images and rollback protection\nRemote configuration and fleet management commands\nCommunication protocols for device-cloud messaging (MQTT-over-TLS, HTTPS, WebSockets)\nHardware / software bring-up\nFirmware-side board bring-up alongside electrical engineers\nValidate hardware interfaces (I²C, SPI, USB, MIPI)\nDiagnose timing, power sequencing, and communication faults\nRequired technical experience\nStrong C/C++ for embedded systems on ARM\nPython for testing, tooling, and automation\nCamera driver experience (V4L2 or equivalent)\nDeep familiarity with embedded interfaces: MIPI CSI-2, I²C, SPI, USB, interrupts\nComfortable reading schematics and datasheets\nSystems and concurrency\nInterrupts, race conditions, memory constraints, real-time scheduling\nRTOS concepts and multi-threaded embedded environments\nStrong plus\nQualcomm, NXP, or Ambarella BSP experience\nSerDes driver integration\nHardware H.264 / H.265 encoder pipelines\nPrecise timing and synchronization (PTP, IEEE 1588)\nHigh-bandwidth data acquisition\nSensor fusion and Kalman filter implementation\nOTA infrastructure for deployed fleets\nIoT telemetry stacks (MQTT, AWS IoT, Azure IoT Hub, or similar)\nROS, MCAP, or Foxglove\nAbout this role Deep systems work. Long hours in the lab during board bring-up. Drivers nobody has written for the silicon you're working with. Firmware that runs unattended on real users for full shifts — and gets updated remotely without ever recalling a device.\nCompensation Range: CN¥80K - CN¥100K","datePosted":"2026-08-04T16:44:22.777Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T16:44:22.777Z","hiringOrganization":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Human Archive","sameAs":"https://jobsearcher.com"},"jobLocation":{"@type":"Place","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","addressLocality":"Millbrae","addressRegion":"CA","addressCountry":"US"}},"identifier":{"@type":"PropertyValue","name":"JobSearcher","value":"bd2511bc5cda5cd58a9cc6ca"},"url":"https://jobsearcher.com/jobs/bd2511bc5cda5cd58a9cc6ca"}}