Embedded Software Engineer

About the Role

CDSPACE is looking for an Embedded Software Engineer who enjoys working close to hardware, solving challenging technical problems, and building reliable embedded systems.

You will develop real-time firmware for drone gimbals, stabilization systems, avionics, and communication subsystems. The role covers the complete embedded development lifecycle, including architecture, implementation, hardware bring-up, debugging, testing, optimization, and production support.

What You’ll Do

Real-Time Firmware Development

• Develop and maintain embedded firmware using C and C++.
• Build real-time firmware for drone gimbals, stabilization systems, avionics, and related subsystems.
• Develop bare-metal and RTOS-based applications for STM32, ESP32, and similar microcontrollers.
• Design concurrent firmware components, interrupt-driven systems, and timing-critical control functions.
• Optimize firmware for execution speed, memory usage, power consumption, and reliability.

Drone Communication and Subsystem Integration

• Develop communication interfaces between flight controllers, gimbals, sensors, payloads, motor controllers, and onboard computers.
• Implement and debug communication protocols such as UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, and RS-485.
• Support integration with wireless communication technologies such as Bluetooth Low Energy and Wi-Fi.
• Develop reliable data handling, device management, error detection, and recovery mechanisms.
• Diagnose communication and integration issues across multiple embedded subsystems.

Gimbal and Motor-Control Systems

• Develop firmware for gimbal control, stabilization, sensing, and motor-drive systems.
• Integrate IMUs, encoders, motor drivers, and other motion-control sensors.
• Work with BLDC motors, motor controllers, and electronic speed controllers.
• Support the implementation and tuning of control algorithms for stabilization and motor control.
• Diagnose timing, vibration, sensor, communication, and control-related issues.

Hardware Bring-Up and Device Drivers

• Develop and maintain board support packages, hardware-abstraction layers, and device drivers.
• Bring up new microcontroller-based boards and validate clocks, memory, power sequencing, peripherals, and communication interfaces.
• Port firmware to new hardware platforms and microcontroller variants.
• Read electronic schematics and component datasheets to support firmware development and debugging.
• Collaborate with hardware engineers to diagnose board-level and hardware-software integration issues.

Bootloaders and Firmware Updates

• Develop and maintain bootloaders and firmware-update mechanisms.
• Support wired and wireless firmware-update workflows.
• Implement firmware validation, rollback, recovery, and fail-safe mechanisms.
• Improve the reliability and usability of production programming and update processes.

Debugging, Testing, and Validation

• Debug firmware using hardware debuggers, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and other laboratory instruments.
• Develop unit, integration, hardware-in-the-loop, and system-level tests.
• Investigate firmware defects, timing issues, memory corruption, communication failures, and hardware faults.
• Perform root-cause analysis and implement corrective actions.
• Support bench testing, field testing, flight trials, and production validation.
• Maintain test procedures, debugging records, and technical documentation.

Production and Engineering Support

• Improve firmware build, programming, calibration, and production-test workflows.
• Support manufacturing teams during board programming, testing, and failure analysis.
• Use Git for version control, collaboration, code review, and release management.
• Work with hardware, avionics, controls, and flight-test teams to resolve system-level issues.
• Maintain clear documentation for firmware architecture, interfaces, configuration, and releases.

Required Qualifications and Skills

• Strong hands-on experience with Embedded C/C++ and low-level programming.
• Experience with bare-metal development and microcontrollers such as STM32, ESP32, or similar platforms.
• Understanding of microcontroller peripherals, interrupts, timers, ADCs, DMA, memory, and watchdogs.
• Experience with UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, RS-485, and related embedded communication protocols.
• Understanding of RTOS concepts, task scheduling, synchronization, concurrency, and inter-process communication.
• Experience developing device drivers, board support packages, and hardware-abstraction layers.
• Knowledge of bootloader development and firmware-update mechanisms.
• Strong firmware debugging and root-cause analysis skills.
• Experience using hardware debuggers, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and other laboratory instruments.
• Ability to read electronic schematics, component datasheets, and technical documentation.
• Basic hardware fault-finding and board bring-up skills.
• Familiarity with Git and software version-control practices.
• Ability to communicate technical findings clearly and work effectively across engineering teams.

Good to Have

• Experience with drones, UAV avionics, autopilots, or gimbal systems.
• Knowledge of BLDC motors, motor drivers, electronic speed controllers, and motor-control techniques.
• Experience integrating IMUs, encoders, cameras, or other UAV sensors and payloads.
• Experience with Bluetooth Low Energy, Wi-Fi, or other wireless communication technologies.
• Familiarity with control systems, sensor fusion, and stabilization algorithms.
• Experience with PX4, ArduPilot, MAVLink, or similar UAV technologies.
• Exposure to FPGA development and FPGA-microcontroller integration.
• Experience taking embedded products from prototype through manufacturing and production.

Experience: 2+ years in embedded software or firmware development.

Education: B.E./B.Tech in Electronics and Communication, Electrical and Electronics, Instrumentation, Computer Science, or a related field.