Senior Staff Firmware Engineer - Santa Clara, CA, United States
Originally posted 15 September 2026 by the employer — open 0 days.
This role is within the Ethernet PHY group, focusing on firmware for an embedded processor in a high-performance PAM4 encoding communication transceiver.
About the role
This role involves developing firmware for high-speed transceivers for computer networks. You will contribute to the development of firmware for an embedded processor in a high-performance PAM4 encoding communication transceiver.
What you'll do
- Develop and debug portable software in C for embedded firmware, host-based utilities, GUIs, and regression/simulation infrastructure.
- Structure new feature designs and software changes for scalability, maintainability, and mergeability.
- Participate in software development design flow, including code reviews, Jira ticket management, and adhering to coding guidelines.
- Perform cross-vendor interoperability testing and debugging.
- Identify, troubleshoot, and resolve issues to maintain standards compliance.
- Create utilities for embedded software development, debugging, evaluation, and diagnostics.
- Develop test infrastructure, test data analysis tools, and maintain test scripts.
What you'll need
- BS/MS degree in CS/CE/EE and 4+ years of experience.
- Solid C and Python programming, debug, and testing skills.
- Knowledge of embedded microprocessors (ARM Cortex).
- Experience with Git source code control and build/release procedures.
- Adherence to established coding guidelines and practices.
Nice to have
- Proficiency at using state machines to architect, design, and write well-structured C code targeted for an embedded microprocessor.
- Experience in the architecture, design, integration, and test of embedded firmware for digital signal processing systems.
- Experience in the design of a boot loader and implementation of an RTOS.
- Experience throughout the entire embedded firmware development cycle including specification, design, integration, and test.
- Strong hardware troubleshooting capability with working knowledge of test equipment including oscilloscopes, ICE, spectrum analyzers, and network analyzers.
- Experience in Python based GUI development.
- Methodical debugging skills and root cause analysis.
- Experience with Ethernet protocols and physical layer devices.
- Proficiency in Verilog.
This role has been open 0 days — well below the 56-day median for Embedded Firmware Engineering roles.
Embedded Firmware Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
687
|
Median days open
56 d
|
Median salary
$174k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Marvell Technology | All employers we track in this specialty (687 roles · 76 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 22 | 687 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 67 | 5741 · 145 employers |
| Median days open | 109 d | 56 d (+53 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $174k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 112 open roles · median 61 d
- Micron Technology · 57 open roles · median 81 d
- NVIDIA · 56 open roles · median 54 d
- AMD · 47 open roles · median 25 d
- Lattice Semiconductor · 46 open roles · median 7 d
- NXP Semiconductors · 29 open roles · median 81 d
How we counted: 687 open Embedded Firmware Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 76 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 15 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.