Example Company

Software engineer

Location: San Francisco
Type: Full time
Compensation: $150k-$200k
Posted: 2 days ago

Join a team building useful software. Work closely with engineering and design to turn new ideas into products.

Principal Firmware Engineer

Type

Full time

Posted

4H AGO

About the role

ADVANCE YOUR CAREER. ADVANCE THE WORLD.

At AMD, we believe technology has the power to solve the world’s most important challenges. From advancing healthcare and scientific discovery to powering AI and the technologies people rely on every day, innovation at AMD is shaping the future.

Whether you’re designing next-gen processors, enabling AI breakthroughs, or bringing leading edge products to market, every role at AMD contributes to something bigger — technology that moves the world forward. Join us and, together, we’ll advance your career.

THE ROLE:

We are looking for an experienced and passionate Firmware Engineer to join a growing team building firmware that is central to AMD's CPU and GPU products. You will own the design, implementation and verification of embedded firmware subsystems in both pre-silicon and post-silicon environments, working shoulder to shoulder with hardware, verification and system software engineers across multiple SoC programs. You will also build out the validation, CI/CD and sanity infrastructure the team depends on, and apply AI-native and agentic development to accelerate how we write, test and debug firmware.

THE PERSON:

You are passionate about high quality firmware development, with creative and effective problem-solving skills and real attention to detail. You are a motivated self-starter who takes a feature from a loosely-defined requirement all the way to production, works well independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced environment, and enjoys mentoring the engineers around you.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Own the design, implementation and co-verification of embedded firmware features for CPU and GPU subsystems, from specification through pre-silicon and post-silicon validation.

Develop low-level firmware for deeply embedded systems in an RTOS environment.

Contribute to firmware architecture and design discussions; participate actively in design and code reviews.

Engage as a teammate with multi-functional teams — architecture, design, verification, power management, BIOS and driver — on delivery of integrated firmware solutions.

Drive pre-silicon validation including co-simulation, emulation and SoC modeling, and support post-silicon enablement, platform bring-up and lab debug.

Build and extend firmware test automation, CI/CD pipelines and sanity/regression infrastructure; improve coverage and turnaround time.

Apply AI-native and agentic development — coding agents, AI-assisted test-case generation and automated triage — to accelerate delivery.

Mentor junior engineers and co-op students.

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE:

Extensive experience with microcontrollers and embedded C/assembly programming; strong in Python.

Hands-on ownership of firmware end to end, from pre-silicon through post-silicon and production.

Strong understanding of low-level hardware/firmware interfaces, multi-core firmware design and performance optimization.

Experience with Real-Time Operating Systems, board support packages and hardware abstraction layers across shared code bases.

Demonstrated proficiency with firmware lab debug, triage and bug fix implementation from silicon bring-up through production.

Experience building test automation frameworks, CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions or similar) and sanity/regression infrastructure.

Practical experience with AI-native and agentic development — AI coding agents, LLM-assisted test-case and script generation, automated log triage.

Hands-on experience with pre-silicon firmware development environments: emulation, RTL simulation and modeling platforms.

Source control (Git) and Agile/Scrum development methodologies; comfortable in a Linux build environment.

Excellent written and verbal communication skills, and the ability to work independently under tight deadlines.

ACADEMIC CREDENTIALS:

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science or other applied sciences.

LOCATION:

Santa Clara, CA

This role is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

#LI-CT1

Benefits offered are described: AMD benefits at a glance.

AMD does not accept unsolicited resumes from headhunters, recruitment agencies, or fee-based recruitment services. AMD and its subsidiaries are equal opportunity, inclusive employers and will consider all applicants without regard to age, ancestry, color, marital status, medical condition, mental or physical disability, national origin, race, religion, political and/or third-party affiliation, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We encourage applications from all qualified candidates and will accommodate applicants’ needs under the respective laws throughout all stages of the recruitment and selection process.

AMD may use Artificial Intelligence to help screen, assess or select applicants for this position. AMD’s “Responsible AI Policy” is available here.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.