Senior/Principal Embedded Systems Engineer - Humanoid Robotics

MBN Solutions is partnering with an exciting, well-funded robotics startup that is building next-generation physical AI systems. As they continue to scale, they're looking to hire a Senior Embedded Systems Engineer to take ownership of the firmware and embedded software stack powering their general-purpose robotic platform.

This is an opportunity to join a highly technical engineering team where you'll work across the hardware and software boundary, helping take cutting-edge robotic systems from prototype through to production deployment.

The Opportunity

As a Senior Embedded Systems Engineer, you'll play a key role in designing and developing the embedded systems that sit at the heart of advanced robotic platforms. Working alongside world-class robotics and AI engineers, you'll own critical firmware components, develop real-time control systems, and help establish the foundations for a scalable robotics platform.

This is a high-impact position offering significant ownership, technical autonomy, and the chance to influence product architecture from an early stage.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop embedded firmware for motor control, sensor integration, and robotic subsystems.
• Design and implement low-level peripheral drivers and hardware abstraction layers.
• Lead hardware bring-up, PCB validation and firmware debugging.
• Develop and optimise real-time motor control algorithms including torque, velocity and position control.
• Build and maintain communication protocols including EtherCAT, CAN, SPI, I2C and UART.
• Contribute to firmware architecture, coding standards, automated testing and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) infrastructure.
• Work closely with hardware, controls and AI teams to deliver robust production-ready embedded systems.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years’ commercial experience developing embedded firmware in C/C++ .
• Proven experience delivering production-grade embedded systems.
• Strong understanding of embedded software architecture and real-time systems.
• Experience with RTOS and bare-metal development.
• Knowledge of embedded communication protocols including EtherCAT, CAN, SPI, I2C and UART.
• Experience working with ARM Cortex-M or similar embedded processors.
• Comfortable debugging hardware/software integration issues.
• Experience with motor control systems (FOC, torque, velocity or position control) would be highly advantageous.
• Python scripting experience is beneficial.
• C / C++
• RTOS
• TI C2000
• EtherCAT
• CAN
• SPI
• I2C
• UART
• JTAG
• Python
• Field-Oriented Control (FOC)

What's on Offer

• Competitive equity package
• Five days per week on-site in the South Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area, California
• Opportunity to join a fast-growing, venture-backed robotics company developing the future of physical AI

About the Company

Our client is an early-stage robotics company developing intelligent automation systems that combine advanced AI with cutting-edge hardware. Backed by significant funding and built by a highly accomplished team of robotics engineers and researchers, they're creating scalable robotic platforms designed for real-world deployment.

The engineering team is collaborative, ambitious, and highly technical, offering an excellent environment for engineers who enjoy solving complex problems and building products from the ground up.