Senior Embedded Systems Engineer

Senior Embedded Systems Engineer

Dexmate is building the foundation for physical AI — a unified platform that combines high-quality robotic hardware with a universal Physical AI OS, making robots as easy to build and deploy as software. Today, robotics is fragmented, slow, and closed: most builders are forced to reinvent the same stack again and again, and most ideas never make it past the prototype stage.

Dexmate's mission is to democratize robotics by lowering the barrier to entry, delivering a plug-and-play platform for developers, researchers, and enterprises, and cultivating an open ecosystem that accelerates the evolution of physical AI.

Dexmate is looking for a Senior Embedded Systems Engineer to own the firmware and embedded software stack on their general-purpose robots. You will work at the intersection of hardware and software — developing motor control firmware, sensor interfaces, and communication infrastructure for robots that go from lab prototype to deployed fleet.

This is a high-ownership, hands-on role. You will collaborate daily with mechanical, electrical, and controls engineers, and your firmware will be among the first code that runs on every new robot subsystem. You will help define how the stack scales.

What You'll Do

• Architect and develop production-grade firmware for actuator controllers, sensor interfaces, and communication subsystems on the robots
• Own hardware bring-up: write low-level peripheral drivers, validate new PCBs, and debug hardware/firmware boundary issues
• Implement and optimize motor control algorithms including torque, velocity, and position loops on bare-metal and RTOS platforms
• Develop and maintain real-time communication stacks including EtherCAT, CAN, SPI, I2C, and UART
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test infrastructure to enable fast, reliable iteration
• Contribute to firmware safety architecture including fault detection, safe-state logic, and watchdog systems
• Read and interpret schematics and datasheets; participate in hardware design reviews to give firmware perspective early
• Establish firmware standards, coding practices, and review processes as the team scales

You Should Have

• 5+ years of embedded firmware development experience in robotics, automotive, or industrial/consumer electronics, with at least some of that in a production-deployed product
• Strong C and C++ skills for bare-metal and RTOS environments across multiple MCU families such as ARM Cortex-M, TI C2000, or Nordic nRF; breadth across vendors and architectures is valued over depth in any single platform
• Hands-on experience with motor control or actuator firmware including FOC, torque control, or similar
• Proficiency with communication protocols at the driver level — not just API usage — including EtherCAT, CAN, SPI, I2C, and UART
• Hardware bring-up experience using JTAG, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and debugging across the firmware/hardware boundary
• Ability to read schematics and PCB layouts; comfortable working directly with hardware engineers

Nice to Have

• Experience scaling firmware from prototype to high-volume production (hundreds to thousands of units)
• Background in functional safety including ISO 26262, IEC 62443, or equivalent
• Python scripting for test automation and HIL frameworks
• Familiarity with EtherCAT master/slave stack implementation such as SOEM or equivalent
• Experience with power electronics firmware including BMS, DC-DC converters, or charging systems
• Prior work in a vertically integrated robotics or hardware startup
• Hands-on use of AI coding agents to accelerate firmware development, including writing prompts, reviewing AI-generated code, and integrating agentic workflows into embedded development cycles

Compensation: Base Salary: $100,000 - $300,000, depending on experience, plus equity.