Firmware Architect

Firmware Architect — Embedded Linux / C++ / Printer Platforms Key Responsibilities 1. Firmware Architecture & Technical Leadership
- Provide hands-on technical leadership for firmware, UI, and extensibility stacks , translating high-level business and product requirements into scalable, robust, and maintainable architectural solutions.
- Define and evolve system and component-level architecture , design patterns, interfaces, APIs, dependencies, and integration strategies across the embedded software ecosystem.
- Lead architecture and design decisions across Embedded C++, Linux, UI (Qt/QML), firmware services, and extensibility frameworks .
- Ensure architectural decisions address performance, scalability, reliability, security, maintainability, backward compatibility, and long-term platform evolution .
- Identify architectural risks early and drive mitigation strategies across multiple engineering teams and components.
- Establish technical standards and engineering best practices that improve code quality, development velocity, system stability, and delivery predictability .
2. Deep Hands-On Engineering
- Remain deeply hands-on in Embedded C++ and Linux , contributing directly to critical design, coding, debugging, and performance optimization activities.
- Troubleshoot complex issues across the full embedded software stack, including application, middleware, firmware services, drivers/interfaces, UI, system services, and hardware/software interactions .
- Lead complex debugging activities involving multi-threading, concurrency, memory management, IPC, resource utilization, boot/runtime behavior, performance bottlenecks, and system stability .
- Support firmware flashing, deployment, integration, and validation across target hardware platforms.
- Drive performance engineering and optimization across CPU, memory, startup time, responsiveness, throughput, resource utilization, and overall system efficiency .
- Conduct deep technical investigations and provide actionable solutions for production and field issues.
3. UI, Firmware & Extensibility
- Provide architectural and technical leadership across the UI (Qt/QML), Firmware, and Extensibility stacks .
- Translate one-line business/product requirements into detailed technical designs, component interactions, APIs, implementation plans, and test strategies.
- Ensure clean integration between UI, firmware services, platform components, and extensibility capabilities.
- Define reusable frameworks and interfaces that enable faster feature development while maintaining platform consistency and reliability.
- Drive architectural simplification and modernization where legacy implementations create technical debt or constrain product evolution.
4. System-Level Debugging & Root-Cause Analysis
- Possess deep system-level understanding with the ability to investigate issues spanning multiple components, teams, and technology layers.
- Perform rigorous root-cause analysis, dependency mapping, cross-component impact assessment, fault isolation, and complex issue resolution .
- Analyze difficult problems that cross traditional organizational or component boundaries and drive teams toward permanent corrective actions rather than tactical fixes.
- Establish structured approaches for investigating intermittent, performance-related, integration, and production issues .
- Clearly communicate technical findings, root causes, risks, and recommendations to engineering leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
Core Technical Expertise:
- Embedded C++ / Modern C++
- Linux / Embedded Linux
- Firmware architecture and system design
- Qt / QML
- Embedded UI architecture
- Firmware services and extensibility frameworks
- Multi-threading, concurrency, IPC and inter-process communication
- Memory management and performance optimization
- Debugging and profiling
- Firmware flashing and deployment
- GoogleTest / gtest
- Python-based engineering and automation tooling
- CI/CD and continuous integration frameworks
- Automated testing and regression frameworks
- Static analysis and code-quality governance
- Git-based development workflows
- Build systems and dependency management
- System-level troubleshooting and root-cause analysis
Preferred Domain Experience:
- Experience working on enterprise printer / multifunction printer platforms or other complex embedded products.
- Strong understanding of printer firmware architecture, including areas such as print pipeline, device services, UI, connectivity, extensibility, device management, and platform services .
- Experience working across hardware/software boundaries and debugging issues involving both embedded software and underlying hardware.
- Experience with large-scale, multi-team embedded product development.
- Exposure to secure embedded development, OTA/firmware updates, device security, and enterprise manageability is a plus.
- Experience modernizing legacy firmware architectures and migrating toward more modular, scalable software platforms is highly desirable.