Firmware Engineer - USA - CA - San Jose (Ridder), United States
$112,050 - $160,050 USD yearly
Originally posted 22 September 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role involves developing, testing, and maintaining embedded software for optical products. The work spans the full firmware development lifecycle to ensure high-performance and reliable operation of devices.
What you'll do
- Design, develop, and debug firmware for new and existing optical modules, transceivers, and other products.
- Implement embedded software for microcontrollers and other embedded systems, focusing on real-time operating systems and internal operation systems.
- Develop and execute comprehensive unit, integration, and system tests to ensure firmware quality and robustness.
- Work closely with hardware engineers to define firmware requirements and interfaces.
- Support product bring-up, debug, and production ramp-up with manufacturing and test engineering teams.
- Analyze and resolve complex firmware issues, including performance bottlenecks and stability problems.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
- 3+ years of experience in embedded firmware development, preferably in the optical networking or telecommunications industry.
- Proficiency in C/C++ programming for embedded systems.
- Experience with bare-metal and real-time operating systems such as FreeRTOS.
- Strong understanding of microcontroller architectures (e.g., ARM Cortex-M/R based) and peripheral interfaces (I2C, SPI, UART, USB, Ethernet).
- Familiarity with hardware/software co-design and debugging tools (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, in-circuit debuggers).
- Experience with version control systems (e.g., Git).
Nice to have
- Knowledge of digital signal processing (DSP) or control systems.
This role has been open 19 days — well below the 60-day median for Embedded Firmware Engineering roles.
Embedded Firmware Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
721
|
Median days open
60 d
|
Median salary
$168k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Lumentum | All employers we track in this specialty (721 roles · 81 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 7 | 721 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 33 | 6028 · 146 employers |
| Median days open | 30 d | 60 d (−30 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $168k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 122 open roles · median 69 d
- AMD · 62 open roles · median 32 d
- Micron Technology · 62 open roles · median 90 d
- NVIDIA · 55 open roles · median 61 d
- Lattice Semiconductor · 41 open roles · median 32 d
- NXP Semiconductors · 27 open roles · median 80 d
How we counted: 721 open Embedded Firmware Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 81 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 11 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.