Senior Firmware Developer - Waterloo, ON, Canada
Originally posted 24 September 2026 by the employer.
This role focuses on low-level firmware for advanced power management devices and high performance sensing solutions.
About the role
This role involves joining the embedded firmware development team to develop low-level firmware for advanced power management devices, high performance sensing solutions, embedded ethernet solutions, and cloud power systems. The team specializes in developing solutions for high performance sensing, embedded ethernet, and cloud power systems.
What you'll do
- Collaborate with system architects, design engineers, firmware engineers, and applications engineers to define and implement optimal firmware solutions.
- Develop firmware architecture specifications and associated test plans.
- Architect and implement embedded firmware primarily in C, with occasional use of C++ or assembly.
- Debug firmware on custom hardware platforms and prototypes.
- Optimize, refactor, and maintain existing firmware codebases.
- Participate in an Agile development environment, contributing to task planning, execution, and timely status updates.
- Apply best practices for coding, documentation, and tool usage (e.g., Git, JIRA, and related development tools).
- Work closely with digital design engineers to emulate and validate new designs using FPGA platforms.
- Leverage AI‑assisted tools throughout the development lifecycle, including requirements analysis, design exploration, coding, test generation, debugging, documentation, and code review.
- Evaluate and apply AI capabilities in a disciplined and secure manner to improve developer productivity, code quality, and system understanding.
What you'll need
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or a related discipline.
- 3-5 years of experience in embedded firmware development.
- Strong proficiency in embedded C, with working knowledge of C++ and assembly language.
- Solid understanding of embedded system design at both board and IC levels.
- Good knowledge of microprocessor architectures, including memory subsystems, interrupts, and common peripherals.
- Experience with communication protocols such as UART, I²C, SPI, and USB.
- Familiarity with hardware debug and analysis tools (e.g., hardware debuggers, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers).
- Demonstrated experience using AI‑assisted development tools across multiple stages of the software lifecycle (design, implementation, validation, and maintenance).
- Ability to critically assess AI‑generated outputs, validate correctness, and integrate them safely into production‑grade firmware.
This role has been open 0 days — well below the 57-day median for Embedded Firmware Engineering roles.
Embedded Firmware Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
725
|
Median days open
57 d
|
Median salary
$174k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | onsemi | All employers we track in this specialty (725 roles · 75 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 1 | 725 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 34 | 5873 · 143 employers |
| Median days open | 0 d | 57 d (−57 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $174k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 136 open roles · median 48 d
- Micron Technology · 62 open roles · median 71 d
- NVIDIA · 60 open roles · median 48 d
- AMD · 52 open roles · median 23 d
- Lattice Semiconductor · 43 open roles · median 15 d
- NXP Semiconductors · 28 open roles · median 63 d
How we counted: 725 open Embedded Firmware Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 75 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 24 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.