Senior Embedded SERDES Firmware/Diagnostics Engineer - San Jose, CA, United States
About the role
This senior staff role involves architecting, developing, and bringing up embedded firmware for Ethernet SerDes, retimers, and diagnostics. The scope includes SerDes, calibration, manufacturing, and test firmware.
What you'll do
- Architect, develop, debug, and release production firmware for optical engines and module platforms (SFP/QSFP/OSFP).
- Define digital requirements for custom control ASICs, including MCU selection, memory maps, boot sequence, peripherals, and telemetry.
- Build and maintain firmware for Ethernet, PCIe, and SerDes (link training, interop, compliance), PTP/IEEE 1588, MACsec, and host interfaces.
- Lead first firmware bring-up on new modules and ASICs, and drive root-cause analysis.
- Deliver firmware for manufacturing test, screening, calibration engines, and lookup tables.
- Own the firmware workflow, including build/release pipelines, automated tests, regression coverage, and CI.
What you'll need
- 8+ years of experience in embedded firmware.
- Expert C and C-based SDK development; exposure to modern C++ or Rust.
- Experience defining MCU requirements (ARM, RISC-V) and working with I2C, I3C, SPI, MDIO, and GPIO.
- Strong Python for test automation, data processing, and firmware QC.
- Hands-on with GCC/Make, Git/GitHub, Doxygen, CI/CD, and hardware-in-the-loop automation.
- Experience using AI-assisted coding, refactoring, and test generation in an embedded workflow.
Nice to have
- MACsec (802.1AE) key management or data-plane acceleration, and PTP hardware timestamping or clock recovery.
- Root of Trust, Secure Boot, and secure firmware update (FOTA/UFOTA).
- SerDes management, link-training tuning, and real-time diagnostic frameworks.
- Product qualification, stress testing, reliability investigations, and board-level FA.
This role has been open 0 days — well below the 60-day median for Embedded Firmware Engineering roles.
Embedded Firmware Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
709
|
Median days open
60 d
|
Median salary
$176k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | TYLsemi | All employers we track in this specialty (709 roles · 77 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 5 | 709 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 6 | 5833 · 143 employers |
| Median days open | 5 d | 60 d (−55 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $176k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 116 open roles · median 67 d
- Micron Technology · 62 open roles · median 74 d
- NVIDIA · 59 open roles · median 51 d
- AMD · 52 open roles · median 26 d
- Lattice Semiconductor · 43 open roles · median 18 d
- NXP Semiconductors · 27 open roles · median 66 d
How we counted: 709 open Embedded Firmware Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 77 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 27 Sept 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.