Senior Embedded Software Engineer

About KOKO Networks
KOKO Networks is a venture-backed climate-tech company with 1,200+ employees across East Africa & India. Our mission is to imagine and deliver technology that improves life in the world’s fastest growing cities. We offer a fast-paced and highly collaborative work environment with significant opportunities for professional growth. Our core lines of business currently include: (1) KOKO Fuel, an ultra-clean liquid bioethanol cooking fuel solution delivered via a network of smart fuel ATMs and leveraging existing downstream liquid fuels infrastructure; (2) KOKO Climate, which retails the emissions reductions that occur from switching households from deforestation-based charcoal to KOKO Fuel; and (3) KOKO Club, a tech-enabled, direct-to-consumer, instant fulfillment retail platform operated in partnership with neighborhood retailers. In 2021, KOKO was selected as the world’s leading emerging markets climate technology solution by FT/IFC.

Your Role

We are looking for a Senior Embedded Software Engineer to lead the development of firmware for KOKO’s IoT based hardware platforms that provide our customers with smart delivery of fuel and other goods through our unique last mile distribution network. As such you will play a key role in enabling KOKO’s long term success, including our expansion to new markets.

In this position on the engineering team, you’ll have the opportunity to contribute to and add value across multiple KOKO's products, at different stages of the product life cycle, and be part of the wider engineering team in delivering best-in-class solutions.

What you will do

• Develop the embedded software that powers our network hardware and the tools that enable us to test, build, diagnose and repair them.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with electronics engineers, software engineers, product managers, and others to integrate embedded software into products.
• Support existing devices and manage firmware improvements in our installed networks
• Provide recommendations for continuous improvement in the functionality of our systems
• Work alongside other engineers on the team to elevate technology and consistently apply best practices.
• Deliver new features to production environments and support them in operation
• Participate in building the engineering culture at KOKO

What You Will Bring to KOKO

• Strong, proven experience coding (5+ years) and good design principles in C/C++ for embedded systems
• Solid and demonstrable understanding of Linux and programming for Linux (e.g. Raspberry Pi)
• Experience programming in both RTOS and bare metal environments
• Ability to developing and debug low level protocols (e.g. I2C, SPI) and higher level communication protocols (e.g. BLE, USB)
• Strong troubleshooting skills for investigating reported issues, debugging and fixing field problems
• Knowledge of IoT “edge” device development and strong understanding of network protocols (HTTP, MQTT) and interfaces (TCP/IP, TLS)
• Knowledge of Git and CI/CD pipelines
• A good grasp of electronics - ability to read schematics and data sheets

Other skills:- Experience in developing commercial products - proven experience developing for hardware at scale

• Strong analytical skills, working with engineering best practices to get the best results
• Team player, conscientious and with a strong collaborative ethos

We are looking for a highly technical leader with significant experience in scaling and maintaining complex, mission critical systems, and making key architectural decisions along the way. Aside from being an expert in your core skills areas, you should be comfortable leading and coaching, building rapport across the team, doing what’s necessary to ensure KOKO’s products always deliver.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary plus a quarterly cash bonus
• Annual compensation reviews - we reward great work
• Health insurance
• 21 days of annual leave plus public holidays plus examination leave
• Hybrid working model - allowing you to split your time between in-person collaboration at one of our offices and working remotely
• Ongoing investment in you and your skills, incl. full access to over 5,000 online courses
• The right equipment for the job - a choice of MacBook, Windows, or Linux laptop

We believe that our people are critical for our ambitious growth plans in Kenya and beyond. We want to build an organisation where people thrive, feel included, grow professionally, and enjoy having high impact through their work.

KOKO is committed to gender and racial diversity in the workplace. We encourage candidates of all backgrounds to apply!