{"id":3991284,"url":"https://alion.io/job/orbit-senior-embedded-software-engineer","title":"Senior Embedded Software Engineer","company":{"id":4403680,"name":"Orbit","domain":"orbitneuro.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/orbit-8","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":null},"role":"Hardware","role_family":"Hardware","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":185000,"max":215000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":215000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Agentic Workflows","optional":false},{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"CMake","optional":false},{"name":"Dropbox","optional":false},{"name":"FreeRTOS","optional":false},{"name":"gRPC","optional":false},{"name":"Hugging Face","optional":false},{"name":"Linux","optional":false},{"name":"MQTT","optional":false},{"name":"Protobuf","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RTOS","optional":false},{"name":"SystemVerilog","optional":false},{"name":"U-Boot","optional":false},{"name":"Verilog","optional":false},{"name":"VHDL","optional":false},{"name":"ZeroMQ","optional":false},{"name":"C","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-09T20:31:42Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-09","last_verified_at":"2026-11-09T23:29:24Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"About Orbit\nWe're a team of engineers, neuroscientists, and designers working to deepen our understanding of the human brain. We're building a wearable brain-computer interface and models that decode emotion, with the goal of putting human experience and wellbeing at the center of technology. Our work spans neural sensors, embedded systems, scientific software, and AI.\nWe're venture funded, with backing from founders and executives across AI, neurotechnology, consumer hardware, and pharmaceuticals, including Google, Hugging Face, Apple, Stability, Microsoft, and Dropbox.\nAbout the role\nHelp turn a sophisticated optical sensing system into a high-performance wearable for understanding the brain. You'll shape how our wearable acquires, processes, and delivers neural measurements, working closely with hardware and signal-processing engineers.\nOur platform combines C++23, embedded Linux built with the Yocto Project, and modern sensing hardware, with gRPC and Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) connecting acquisition software to the wider system. We tackle deep design challenges in timing, concurrency, memory, and throughput. The embedded firmware you design will directly empower individuals with insights into their own brain.\nYou will\nDevelop the C++ software that controls acquisition, configures peripherals, runs self-tests, and manages recording sessions.\n\nDesign and optimize the path from raw sensor frames through on-device signal processing to a timestamped network stream.\n\nEvolve our Yocto-based Linux platform, including application integration, system configuration, and reproducible builds.\n\nSolve timing, concurrency, memory, and throughput challenges across a high-performance wearable.\n\nCollaborate with hardware and FPGA engineers to bring new sensing capabilities to life.\n\nBuild automated tests, performance measurements, and development tools that make the acquisition system reliable and scalable.\n\nYou are\nAn engineer with a degree in computer science, electrical engineering, computer engineering, or a related field, and at least five years of relevant professional experience.\n\nExperienced in modern C++ for embedded systems, including resource management, concurrency, and debugging.\n\nComfortable developing on embedded Linux, with practical experience using Yocto.\n\nFamiliar with networked services or messaging protocols such as gRPC, MQTT, DDS, or ZeroMQ, and approaches to moving structured data between systems.\n\nComfortable reasoning across software and hardware boundaries and using measurements to explore design choices.\n\nSomeone who enjoys sharing discoveries, discussing tradeoffs, and learning alongside engineers from other disciplines.\n\nYou might also\nHave experience with Verilog, SystemVerilog, or VHDL and FPGA-based acquisition.\n\nKnow ARM-based systems, AMD/Xilinx Zynq platforms, or AMD's Embedded Development Framework (EDF), with experience in board support packages (BSPs), device trees, or U-Boot.\n\nHave worked on timing, clock synchronization, digital signal processing (DSP), or high-throughput data acquisition (DAQ), or bring related real-time operating system (RTOS) experience with FreeRTOS or Zephyr.\n\nHave developed Linux kernel device drivers or worked with DMA, SPI, I2C, or other hardware interfaces.\n\nBring experience with scientific instruments, optical sensing, robotics, or other precision measurement systems.\n\nHave used CMake, GoogleTest, Catch2, or hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing to build confidence in embedded software.\n\nBring additional embedded Linux experience with Buildroot, OpenEmbedded, cross-compilation, or debugging with GDB and JTAG.\n\nWe're looking for a strong foundation and the ability to grow. You don't need experience with every technology we use, and the \"You might also\" section is entirely optional. If the core work feels like a good match but some details are new to you, we'd like to hear from you. Prior neuroscience or brain-computer interface experience isn't expected.\nHow we work\nWe're a small, high-performance team with quick feedback loops and room to experiment. You'll work directly with people across engineering, neuroscience, and design, understand why your work matters, and have real influence over how we build.\nWe work with modern software and hardware stacks, including C++23, modern Python, and a Linux-forward development environment. We use principled engineering and thoughtful design to explore, build and test, aided by modern agentic workflows. You'll have room to shape both the product and the way we create it.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4542,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Machine Learning","Neurotech & Neuromodulation"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-09T23:29:24Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":29,"reasons":["conf:2","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-10T02:22:40Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":215000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/orbit-senior-embedded-software-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/orbit-senior-embedded-software-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-10T02:22:40Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":5528,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-11T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":4403680},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=4403680"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Forbit-senior-embedded-software-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Forbit-senior-embedded-software-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Forbit-senior-embedded-software-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/orbit-senior-embedded-software-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Forbit-senior-embedded-software-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3991284}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"orbitneuro.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3991284},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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