Senior/Principal Firmware Engineer - Optical Transceivers (On-site)

Job Description

About Polaris Electro-Optics \n

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Polaris Electro-Optics is a rapidly growing photonics company developing breakthrough

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optical interconnect technology for data centers, AI, and high-performance computing.

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Their proprietary FenGlass™ platform integrates ferroelectric nematic materials into silicon

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photonics, enabling faster, compact, and more energy-efficient solutions. Located in San

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Diego and backed by substantial funding, Polaris is scaling to meet demand from hyperscale

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customers and transceiver suppliers.

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Role Summary

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We are looking for a Senior or Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer to develop the control firmware and software infrastructure supporting our next-generation optical interconnect platforms and evaluation systems.

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This is a hands-on role focused on MCU-based control, device configuration, telemetry, calibration support, power sequencing, hardware bring-up, and host interfaces. The engineer will work closely with mixed-signal hardware, high-speed hardware, photonics, and systems teams to bring complex electro-optical hardware to stable and repeatable operation.

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Responsibilities

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• Develop embedded firmware for board bring-up, device configuration, telemetry, calibration, and hardware control.
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• Implement MCU-based control of ADCs, DACs, regulators, temperature sensors, MZM heaters, drivers, TIAs, and other peripheral devices.
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• Own implementation and maintenance of CMIS-based module management, including state-machine behavior, configuration, telemetry, alarms, control functions, and host management interfaces. 
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• Develop SPI, I²C, UART, USB, GPIO, and related low-level device drivers.
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• Develop calibration and initialization routines for optical and electrical hardware.
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• Support MZM bias/heater calibration, monitor photodiode acquisition, driver/TIA configuration, and telemetry collection.
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• Work with systems engineers to expose appropriate control and diagnostic functionality for system bring-up and automated testing.
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• Debug firmware/hardware interactions in the lab.
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• Develop logging, diagnostics, fault reporting, and firmware update mechanisms.
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• Establish firmware release, versioning, regression-test, and CI practices to support repeatable development and qualification. 
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• Maintain firmware architecture, source control, documentation, and release processes.
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• Support integration with higher-level test automation and system-control software.
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Qualifications

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• B.S. or M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.
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• Strong embedded C/C++ experience.
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• Hands-on experience with CMIS-based optical module management, including module state control, telemetry, configuration, and firmware interfaces. 
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• Experience with ARM Cortex-M or similar embedded processors.
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• Strong understanding of SPI, I²C, UART, USB, GPIO, interrupts, timers, ADCs, DACs, and peripheral interfaces.
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• Experience with board bring-up and hardware/firmware debug.
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• Ability to read schematics and work directly with hardware engineers during bring-up.
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• Experience implementing power sequencing, telemetry, fault handling, and device configuration.
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• Comfortable working in a laboratory environment with first-generation hardware.
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Preferred

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• Experience with optical transceivers, photonics, datacom, or high-speed communications systems.
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• Experience implementing and validating CMIS across multiple optical transceiver platforms or product generations. 
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• Experience developing calibration and control firmware for analog or mixed-signal hardware.
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• Familiarity with Python or another scripting language for firmware test and automation.
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• Experience with bootloaders, firmware update mechanisms, manufacturing tests, or field diagnostics.
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