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Senior Software Engineer

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Date: 11 Aug 2026

Location: AE

Company: Technology Innovation Institute

Role Overview

As an experienced Senior Software Engineer specializing in embedded security and real-time firmware, you will design, implement, and maintain the embedded software for a physical tamper-detection system detecting and responding to physical intrusion on PCBs. Working with low-power MCUs, you will build the sensing, boot-security, and tamper-response software that protects cryptographic material and mission integrity. 

This position requires deep proficiency in embedded C/C++ on ARM Cortex-M class devices, hands-on experience with Zephyr (or a comparable RTOS), and strong digital signal processing skills: the systems you build must reliably distinguish genuine tamper events from benign environmental noise and vibration. You will work as a senior individual contributor within a multidisciplinary team of hardware, security, manufacturing, and certification engineers, taking independent ownership of complex firmware subsystems and mentoring junior engineers. 

 

Industry / Domain

Defense & Aerospace / Embedded Security / Hardware Tamper Protection 

 

Functional Activities

Embedded Security Firmware Development:  

  • Develop and maintain real-time firmware in C/C++ on ARM Cortex-M class MCUs under Zephyr RTOS, optimized for ultra-low-power, always-on operation in battery-backed power domains.
  • Implement secure boot chains (e.g., MCUboot), signed firmware images, and secure update mechanisms ensuring only authentic, unmodified code can run.
  • Implement cryptographic key management on-device: provisioning, storage in hardware-protected domains, and reliable key/sensitive-data zeroization on confirmed tamper events.
  • Develop tamper-response logic: event latching, tamper-evident logging, anti-rollback, secure debug control, and lifecycle-state enforcement. 

 

Sensor Acquisition & Signal Processing:  

  • Design and implement sensor acquisition pipelines: ADC interfacing, sampling strategies, and driver development for analog and digital sensor front-ends.
  • Apply DSP techniques, including digital filtering, spectral analysis, and feature extraction, to characterize sensor signals in noisy real-world environments.
  • Develop and tune event-detection and classification algorithms that separate genuine tamper signatures from environmental noise, vibration, and transient disturbances, minimizing false positives without missing real events.
  • Support data-collection campaigns and analysis workflows used to validate and improve detection performance. 

 

Platform & System Integration:  

  • Perform SoC/MCU platform bring-up on NXP-based and NVIDIA-based platforms: BSP integration, boot-chain validation, peripheral enablement, driver integration, and platform debugging (Linux/Yocto on host platforms where applicable).
  • Integrate tamper-protection firmware with host systems over standard interfaces (UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, network), including alert reporting, status telemetry, and command/control flows.
  • Work with hardware, FPGA, security, and systems teams to validate end-to-end integration from sensor front-end to host-level response. 

 

Security Engineering & Compliance: 

  • Contribute to threat modeling, vulnerability assessments, and secure-coding reviews for embedded targets.
  • Produce design and implementation evidence supporting certification against hardware-security standards (ISO/IEC 19790, FIPS 140, Common Criteria).
  • Support production security workflows: fuse burning, root-of-trust provisioning, device identity, factory flashing, and manufacturing test procedures. 

 

Quality & Collaboration:  

  • Deliver well-tested firmware through CI/CD pipelines with automated unit, integration, and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing.
  • Participate actively in code reviews, design reviews, estimation, and agile ceremonies; mentor junior engineers within your areas of expertise.
  • Document designs, interfaces, and test procedures to team standards.

 

Necessary Knowledge and Experience

  • 5-8 years of professional embedded software development experience, with firmware shipped through integration, test, and production, preferably in defense, aerospace, or security-critical products.
  • Strong C/C++ on ARM Cortex-M class microcontrollers; solid grasp of real-time constraints, interrupt-driven design, and memory-constrained development.
  • Hands-on experience with Zephyr RTOS or a comparable RTOS (FreeRTOS, ThreadX) and willingness to specialize in Zephyr.
  • Demonstrable DSP and sensor signal-processing experience (required): ADC interfacing, digital filtering, spectral analysis, feature extraction, and event/anomaly detection in noisy environments. Edge-ML classification experience is a plus.
  • Experience implementing embedded security features: secure boot (MCUboot or equivalent), signed firmware and secure update, hardware root of trust, TEE concepts, key provisioning and zeroization, encrypted communications, anti-rollback, and secure debug control.
  • SoC platform bring-up experience (NXP and/or NVIDIA platforms preferred): BSP integration, boot-chain validation, peripheral enablement, driver integration, and platform debugging; Linux/Yocto familiarity for host-side integration.
  • Low-power design experience: sleep-state management, power budgeting, and battery-backed always-on operation.
  • Familiarity with secure development practices: threat modeling, secure coding standards, and vulnerability assessment for embedded targets.
  • Proficiency with Git, CI/CD, automated testing, and HIL test setups; Docker familiarity is a plus.
  • Strong English communication skills and proven ability to work with hardware, security, manufacturing, QA, and systems teams under pressure. 

 

Education and Certification Requirements

  • BSc or MSc in Electrical/Electronic Engineering, Computer Science, Embedded Systems, or a related discipline.
  • Exposure to cryptographic-module or product security certification work (ISO/IEC 19790, FIPS 140, Common Criteria, or IEC 62443) is a strong plus.
  • Basic understanding of flight-controller platforms (e.g., PX4/MAVLink) is a nice-to-have, not a requirement.
  • Contributions to open-source embedded or security projects (e.g., Zephyr, MCUboot) are valued.