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Axiado is seeking an experienced Principal Firmware Engineer to lead the design, development, and optimization of highly secure embedded systems for AI infrastructure. This is a "player-coach" role combining team leadership with hands-on technical contribution.
You will architect end-to-end platform security solutions, including Secure Boot, hardware Root of Trust (RoT), and verified boot pipelines. Key responsibilities include:
• Team Leadership: Lead and manage a firmware engineering team while remaining a core individual contributor, dedicating significant time to code development, code reviews, and resolving complex technical challenges.
• Security Architecture: Design and optimize embedded software with focus on platform security, Secure Boot, RoT, and verified boot flows.
• Attestation & Provisioning: Implement attestation schemes such as SPDM for device authentication and remote measurement, and manage secure factory and field provisioning workflows.
• Firmware Lifecycle: Design cryptographic firmware signing infrastructure, secure update pipelines, and revocation mechanisms including anti-rollback counters, key revocation lists, and certificate revocation.
• Debugging & Analysis: Diagnose and resolve complex hardware/software and cryptographic failure modes using JTAG, GDB, and logic analyzers.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with security experts, hardware engineers, and system architects to define roadmaps and deliver scalable embedded security solutions.
Axiado, founded in 2019 and headquartered in Silicon Valley, is a well-funded team of 180+ people building Trusted Control/Compute Units (TCU)—a new class of semiconductor integrating hardware security, real-time platform management, and AI-driven optimization. The company has received multiple industry awards and is backed by strong funding with commercial validation from Tier 1 industry leaders. All employees hold equity.
REQUIREMENTS:
• Education: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Cybersecurity, or related field.
• Experience: 20+ years in embedded software development with strong C/C++ foundation.
• Team Leadership: Proven track record managing and leading engineering teams while maintaining hands-on involvement in software development and system architecture.
• Security Expertise: Proven experience with Secure Boot, Root of Trust, and cryptographic security principles (symmetric/asymmetric cryptography, hashing, digital signatures); hands-on implementation of attestation schemes such as SPDM; in-depth knowledge of secure provisioning, HSM integration, and secure key storage; robust understanding of firmware signing workflows and lifecycle revocation architectures (CRLs, embedded validation, fuse-based key revocation).
• System Software & Hardware: Extensive experience with RTOS, Linux kernel, device drivers, and hardware bring-up using Board Support Packages (BSPs).
• Protocols & Interfaces: Strong grasp of peripheral interfaces (SPI, I2C, UART, USB) and bus protocols (PCIe, Ethernet); PCIe root port and SR-IOV knowledge a strong plus.
• Toolchains & Build Systems: Familiarity with Linux build frameworks (Yocto, Buildroot), low-level debugging via JTAG and GDB.
• Preferred: Experience with Baseboard Management Controllers (BMC) and hardware security accelerators.
