Senior Firmware Design Engineer SoC Development(40) (Bengaluru)

Job Description - Key Responsibilities Design and develop low-level firmware for ARM-based MCUs and SoCs. Develop and maintain secure boot firmware, boot ROM sequences, and authentication flows. Implement secure firmware mechanisms, including Root of Trust (RoT), secure key handling, firmware authentication, secure image verification, and anti-rollback protection. Develop device drivers for peripherals such as UART, SPI, I2C, GPIO, DMA, Timers, Watchdog, and PCIe/USB/Ethernet (if applicable). Define and optimize SoC boot-up and initialization sequences. Work closely with RTL, hardware, validation, and security teams during pre-silicon verification, FPGA bring-up, post-silicon validation, and silicon debugging activities. Develop firmware for power management, reset handling, clock initialization, and memory initialization. Participate in silicon bring-up activities and debug boot or firmware-related issues. Create test plans, diagnostics, and validation firmware for new silicon. Analyze firmware performance, memory footprint, and boot time optimizations. Support firmware integration with RTOS or bare-metal environments. Contribute to architecture reviews and firmware coding standards. Mentor junior engineers and drive technical excellence within the team. Required Skills & Qualifications Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electronics, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field. 8+ years of experience in embedded firmware or SoC firmware development. Strong expertise in ARM Cortex-M/Cortex-A architecture and ARM boot flows. Hands-on experience in secure boot implementation, boot ROM development, firmware authentication, device driver development, and SoC initialization sequences. Strong programming skills in Embedded C, Assembly language, and Python or other scripting languages for automation. Experience with JTAG, debuggers, oscilloscopes, and silicon bring-up tools. Good understanding of memory maps, interrupt architecture, cache/MMU concepts, power sequencing, and clock/reset architecture. Familiarity with embedded development environments and toolchains such as Keil, IAR, GCC, and Lauterbach. Experience working with RTOS, bare-metal systems, or Linux boot environments. Knowledge of firmware security standards and cryptographic concepts is highly desirable. Strong debugging and problem-solving skills. Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration abilities. Preferred Qualifications Experience in semiconductor or fabless SoC product development. Exposure to TrustZone, TPM, HSM, or secure enclave technologies. Experience with OTA firmware update mechanisms and secure firmware lifecycle management. Familiarity with UEFI, TF-A, U-Boot, or custom bootloader architectures. Experience supporting tapeout and post-silicon production release activities. Software development experience using C and Assembly language with ARM CPUs. Experience in software development and testing in FPGA environments. Experience in developing low-level drivers, hardware bring-up, utilizing test tools, and collaborating with hardware design teams. Exposure to multiple high-level programming languages, including C and C++. Experience with configuration management tools such as Git, Subversion, and Perforce. Experience with scripting languages such as Bash/Shell, Perl, and Python. Experience with MCUs, peripherals, features, and embedded development environments is an added advantage. Proven ability to design and integrate code into shipping products while meeting aggressive timelines. Strong software debugging skills are essential. Proficiency in Verilog/SystemVerilog. Experience with firmware development and debugging in pre-silicon environments, including simulation and emulation. Proven excellence in firmware development, device driver development, or equivalent engineering experience. Key Attributes Solid ownership and execution mindset. Ability to work effectively in fast-paced, cross-functional environments. Excellent analytical and debugging capabilities. Passion for low-level embedded systems and silicon enablement. .