Staff Embedded Software Engineer

We are looking for the best About Us 42dot is a mobility AI company committed to solving mobility challenges with software and AI. As the Global Software Center of Hyundai Motor Group, 42dot pioneers the future of mobility by advancing the development of software-defined vehicles.

We develop safety-first, user-centric software-defined vehicle technologies that deliver the latest performance through continuous updates like smartphones. By advancing software and AI technology, 42dot envisions a world where everything is connected and moves autonomously through a self-managing urban transportation operating system.

About The Role

As a Staff Embedded Firmware Engineer , you will serve as a technical anchor for the core real-time software stack powering 42dot’s next-generation automotive platform.

You will drive architectural decisions and implementation across the full embedded spectrum—from low-level board support packages (BSPs), peripheral drivers, and hardware interfaces up to RTOS architecture, deterministic communication protocols, and safety-critical platform logic.

In this role, you will champion high-performance, deterministic C and modern embedded C++ development adhering strictly to MISRA guidelines and ISO 26262 functional safety requirements. You will spearhead hardware bring-up efforts in our Sunnyvale labs, establish system characterization and timing budgets, resolve complex cross-domain issues, and ensure production-grade execution for Hyundai’s SDV platform.

Responsibilities

Platform Architecture & Firmware Development: Drive the technical design, implementation, and evolution of low-level BSPs, hardware abstraction layers, peripheral drivers (GPIO, ADC, PWM, Timers), and high-throughput communication stacks (CAN-FD, Ethernet/TSN, SPI, I2C).

RTOS & Concurrency Architecture

Architect and optimize RTOS environments (FreeRTOS, SafeRTOS, AUTOSAR OS), defining task partitioning, scheduling policies, IPC mechanisms, memory isolation, and deterministic execution budgets across multi-core systems.

Safety Coding & Quality Standards

Enforce rigorous MISRA C/C++ compliance and ISO 26262 safety practices (ASIL-D trajectory); establish static analysis baselines, triage workflows, and sound justification standards for the team.

Silicon Bring-Up & System Characterization

Lead hardware bring-up for new silicon and custom prototype boards; define methodologies for system characterization, interrupt latency analysis, execution profiling, and power/resource budgeting.

Complex Triage & Root-Cause Analysis

Serve as an escalation point for elusive hardware/software interaction bugs, timing issues, and race conditions using JTAG/SWD debuggers, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and bus analyzers.

Technical Interface Ownership

Partner closely with hardware design, systems engineering, and V&V teams to define rigorous Hardware-Software Interface specifications (ICDs) and drive bring-up tooling requirements.

Engineering Standards & Mentorship

Elevate code quality, design consistency, and review standards across the firmware organization; mentor senior and mid-level engineers.

Qualifications

Experience: 10+ years of hands-on embedded software engineering experience delivering production-grade firmware for safety-critical or resource-constrained platforms (Automotive, Aerospace, Medical Devices, Industrial Robotics, or Consumer Electronics).

C/C++ Mastery

Expert proficiency in embedded C and modern embedded C++, with deep knowledge of memory models, low-level concurrency, compiler optimization behaviors, and deterministic execution.

RTOS Architecture Depth

Proven track record architecting, tuning, and debugging production multi-threaded software on commercial or open-source RTOS platforms, including formal timing analysis and synchronization primitives.

Static Analysis Governance

Extensive hands-on experience with enterprise static analysis tools (Coverity, Polyspace, QAC, or Cppcheck), including establishing rulesets, resolving complex findings, and managing defensible suppressions.

Full-Stack Hardware Literacy

Strong architectural understanding of modern MCU/SoC architectures (ARM Cortex-M/R, TriCore, or similar), register-level programming, memory-mapped I/O, and automotive buses (CAN-FD, Ethernet, SPI, I2C).

Bring-Up Leadership

Demonstrated success leading board bring-up in a hardware lab, utilizing oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and bus analyzers to diagnose board- and silicon-level defects.

Regulated Safety Track Record

Practical experience developing and delivering software under a regulated safety framework (ISO 26262, IEC 62304, DO-178C) with strict traceability to requirements.

Modern Build & CI Tooling

Proficiency with Git, Bazel (or modern build systems), and automated CI/CD pipelines for firmware build verification and automated testing.

Preferred Qualifications

Automotive Stacks & Diagnostics: Deep familiarity with ISO 14229 (UDS), SOME/IP, DoIP, or automotive Ethernet communication stacks.

Multi-Core & Security

Experience architecting multi-core microcontroller solutions, Hardware Security Modules (HSM), or secure boot implementations.

Communication Protocol Design

Experience designing, implementing, and validating custom or standardized protocol state machines, serialization layers, and fault-recovery logic.

Object-Oriented Architecture

Proven ability to apply structured OOP design patterns, clean interface abstractions, and data encapsulation in embedded C++ contexts.

Automation & Tooling

Proficiency in Python for developing internal bring-up tooling, HIL automation, or custom build/test scripts.