Senior Safety Firmware Engineer

What we need 

We are looking for a Senior Safety Firmware Engineer to join our Safety Software team within our Functional Safety organization. Your job will be to architect, develop, and maintain safety-critical firmware and embedded software for real-time compute platforms that support Symbotic’s advanced robotics systems. You will design and develop software strategies for ARM-based platforms with functional safety requirements, helping ensure our automation systems operate safely, reliably, and at scale. 

This is a hands-on engineering role focused on embedded systems, real-time operating systems (RTOS), and safety-critical software development. You will work closely with hardware, systems, and cross-functional engineering teams to design fail-safe mechanisms, troubleshoot complex technical issues, and develop robust embedded platforms for next-generation warehouse automation. 

What we do 

The Safety Software team is part of the Functional Safety organization, which is responsible for delivering high-performance safety controls and monitoring systems for Symbotic’s advanced warehouse automation solutions. The team develops embedded safety-critical software that enables reliable, compliant, and safe operation across robotic systems and automation platforms. 

We work at the intersection of embedded firmware, systems engineering, hardware integration, and functional safety. Our engineering culture emphasizes technical rigor, ownership, thoughtful planning, and long-term maintainability. We value engineers who contribute to strong technical debate, high-quality software, and continuous improvement. 

What you’ll do 

• Design and develop software strategies for real-time ARM-based compute platforms with functional safety requirements. 

• Develop, document, and maintain embedded software in C along with Linux and shell scripting solutions using Python, Bash, and related tools. 

• Design redundancy and fail-safe software mechanisms through failure mode analysis to ensure safe system operation under fault conditions.

• Create and maintain C-based unit and integration tests to verify embedded functionality and achieve software quality and test coverage goals.

• Support system testing, integration, and validation activities for components and subsystems. 

• Collaborate closely with hardware engineering teams to review schematics and develop software for custom hardware peripherals and interfaces.

• Troubleshoot production and design-related issues through log analysis, debugging, root cause analysis, and board bring-up activities.

• Participate in rigorous code and design review processes to maintain software quality, traceability, and engineering best practices. 

• Support functional safety activities including hazard analysis, DFMEA, FMEDA, fault tree analysis, and functional safety reviews.

• Utilize Git and software development processes to ensure maintainable, traceable, and well-documented software development. 

• Travel up to 25% to support testing, system integration, and cross-functional collaboration across Symbotic locations.

What you’ll need 

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, or related engineering discipline.

• Minimum of 8 years of professional experience developing real-time embedded software, firmware, or device drivers. 

• Strong experience developing embedded software in C within real-time or embedded operating systems environments.

• Deep understanding of RTOS concepts and experience with platforms such as QNX, VxWorks, FreeRTOS, SafeRTOS, or similar. 

• Strong knowledge of POSIX systems programming including multithreading, synchronization mechanisms (mutexes, semaphores), shared memory, signals, events, and inter-process communication. 

• Experience with low-level communication protocols, networking stacks, and socket implementations including UDP, TCP/IP, and related protocols.

• Strong Linux shell scripting skills, particularly Python and Bash, including experience with parsing, regex, grep, and command-line tooling.

• Experience with software development lifecycle processes, source control, and version control systems such as Git. 

• Strong debugging and troubleshooting skills, including experience working with memory-constrained embedded systems.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with strong documentation practices and the ability to work effectively across matrixed technical teams.

Preferred Qualifications 

• Experience working in regulated or safety-critical environments such as functional safety, robotics, industrial automation, or medical devices. 

• Familiarity with IEC 61508 or other functional safety standards. 

• TÜV Functional Safety Engineer (FSE) certification. 

• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing and automation. 

• Experience integrating vendor SDKs and working with binary communication protocols. 

• Experience supporting robotic systems, industrial controls, or autonomous platforms.

• Up to 25% of travel may be required. Employees must have a valid driver’s license and the ability to drive and/or fly to client and other customer locations. 

• The employee is responsible for owning a credit card and managing expenses personally to be reimbursed on a bi-weekly basis. 

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