Principal Design & Firmware Engineer - Denver, CO, United States
$148,100 - $192,500 USD yearly
Originally posted 3 August 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role involves designing, building, testing, and maintaining embedded controller hardware and firmware for phased array reference designs and array products. The position supports power supply and digital control circuitry for phased array solutions within the Antenna Technologies team.
What you'll do
- Architect active IC control logic and develop hardware for phased array systems.
- Write embedded control firmware for phased array operation, including near real-time beamsteering updates, IC polling, temperature readings, calibration, and error monitoring.
- Build SPI digital communication links between microcontrollers and peripherals.
- Create Interface Control Documents (ICDs) to connect external systems like GPS and INS systems, and write firmware to transfer data.
- Lead debugging and test verification of high-speed digital systems and functionality of high-speed interfaces.
- Develop specifications and resource requirements for digital, firmware, and embedded software designs.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree (BSEE or equivalent) with minimum of 5 years overall experience.
- Experience with embedded controller testing and troubleshooting, analog/digital circuit design, power management, schematic capture, PCB layout, and BOM tools.
- Experience with SPI, I2C, UART, and system-level ICDs; familiarity with GPS receivers, INS sensors, and navigation data.
- Strong circuit design, documentation, and implementation experience with high-speed digital electronics, DC power supply designs, and embedded processor systems.
- Experience in signal and power integrity analysis of digital/FPGA designs.
Nice to have
- Familiarity with phased array beamsteering algorithms and array math implemented in firmware.
- Experience in low-voltage power supply/regulation design, with experience related to RF circuit design.
- Experience with design, analysis, and layout of PCBs with high-speed digital line rates of 1+ Gb/s.
- Experience developing software in python and familiarity with object oriented programming.
- Digital system partitioning and function implementation in FPGAs and simulation.
This role has been open 64 days — slightly above the 60-day median for Embedded Firmware Engineering roles.
Embedded Firmware Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
711
|
Median days open
60 d
|
Median salary
$169k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | QORVO | All employers we track in this specialty (711 roles · 78 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 2 | 711 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 28 | 6034 · 146 employers |
| Median days open | 51 d | 60 d (−9 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $169k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 121 open roles · median 57 d
- Micron Technology · 61 open roles · median 97 d
- NVIDIA · 57 open roles · median 57 d
- AMD · 56 open roles · median 33 d
- Lattice Semiconductor · 41 open roles · median 28 d
- NXP Semiconductors · 29 open roles · median 76 d
How we counted: 711 open Embedded Firmware Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 78 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 7 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.