Senior Embedded/Firmware Engineer (freelance)

In short If you're a firmware engineer who's just as comfortable reading a schematic as writing C, and you've spent serious time inside ESP32 or STM32 projects, we want to talk. You'd join us on a freelance , time & material basis : you're paid for the hours you actually work on real client projects.

The first three months are about figuring out if we're a good match. When things work out, and that depends on the work itself, the project pipeline, and business timing, there's a real path to our core team with a permanent contract and full benefits. Why intent ? We've been designing and co-creating connected devices since 2008.

Wearables, smart audio, health-tech hardware for clients like Oura and BOSE, backed by investors like a16z and Founders Fund. We're 60+ people, fully remote, and AI-native since before LinkedIn influencers discovered the term. Firmware is where most of our products actually live or die: BLE stacks, power budgets, sensor pipelines, OTA.

If you like the kind of bug that only shows up at -10°C with a flat battery, you'll feel at home. Who this role is NOT for If you like being told exactly what to flash every morning and logging off the second the linker finishes, we're probably not your people.

We look for engineers who ask "why" before "how", challenge assumptions, and dig into the hardware when the symptoms don't add up. We're AI-native and we expect you to treat AI as a daily multiplier, not a gimmick.

What we expect: ownership of what you touch, straight talk when something on the board doesn't behave, and the kind of curiosity that makes you actually care about the device, not just the code that ships to it. What you'll do

Plan, develop, and ship firmware for connected devices: wearables, audio, health-tech hardware

Gather and analyze requirements from clients, then turn them into something that actually works on real silicon

Consult clients and internal teams on stacks, tools, and trade-offs

Work side by side with mobile, backend, and QA to make sure the device and its companion app actually understand each other over BLE

Test firmware releases and write the documentation that future-you will thank present-you for

Estimate your own work and flag risks before they become blockers

Push for better practices: code reviews, patterns, knowledge-sharing inside and outside the chapter

Use AI tools as part of your daily workflow, not as a party trick

How we work Fully remote. We have a pet-friendly office in Warsaw and a coworking space in Gdansk if walls and coffee machines motivate you, but nobody will ask why you're not there. Working hours are flexible: most of the team operates between 10:00 and 18:00 CET, and that's when most meetings happen.

Evening calls with US-based clients (up to ~20:00) are part of the rhythm, sometimes a couple of times a week, always planned ahead. You'll be part of the Firmware & Hardware chapter for knowledge-sharing, and at the same time on a project squad led by a PM for day-to-day delivery. What you'll get

Truly flexible hours: you organize your day

Fully remote, with pet-friendly Warsaw office + Gdansk cowork if you want them

Access to our internal knowledge-sharing: tech talks, experiments, side projects

When the first 3 months work out, and that depends on the work, the project pipeline, and business timing, there's a real path to a permanent contract with a fixed monthly salary, 26 days paid leave, 10 sick days, Saltus medical care, and a training budget

No sugarcoating: during the freelance period there's no paid leave or medical benefits. Those come with the permanent contract, and we're transparent about that upfront.

Your first weeks We aim to give you space to ramp up before jumping into live project work, but this is a real company with real deadlines: if the project needs you sooner, we'll make sure you have the support to hit the ground running.

You'll get paired with a technical buddy and tackle progressively bigger tasks, so both sides can see how the collaboration feels. Feedback comes early and often, no one waits three months to tell you something isn't working. If it's great, you'll know. If something needs adjusting, you'll hear about it while there's still time to adjust.

Recruitment process The entire process is in English. All interviews are recorded for internal evaluation purposes.

Application with a few screening questions

HR call, ~45 min, casual

Technical meeting, ~90 min, with the firmware team

Final feedback within a few days

Once we're in touch, you'll hear from us fast. We don't ghost and we don't drag. One more thing intent is an equal opportunity employer. We care about what you can do, not where you come from. Send us your CV and a few words about why this caught your eye. Bonus points if you share something you've built that made you proud, ideally something where the firmware had to behave under conditions nobody told you about upfront. Requirements What we're looking for

4+ years of professional firmware development

Strong C/C++ for embedded systems (not "I dabbled in microcontrollers in school")

Hands-on ESP32 experience, including ESP-IDF and ESP-ADF

STM32 experience in production projects

Solid Bluetooth knowledge: BLE, Bluetooth Mesh, and comfort across the stack layers

Toolchain fluency: CMake, GCC, Python-based tooling

Familiarity with IoT protocols like MQTT and WebSockets

A feel for the connected device landscape: IoT, home automation, wearables, automotive

English at B2+, written and spoken, because our clients are mostly US-based

Self-reliance, ownership, and the kind of communication where people don't have to guess what you meant

Nice to have

Rapid hardware prototyping on Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, Nucleo

Working knowledge of LoRa, Zigbee, Thread, Wi-Fi, and other networking standards

Fleet deployment and management with AWS IoT Core, GCP Cloud IoT, Azure IoT, or similar

Cryptography in embedded contexts

Audio paths: encoding, decoding, mixers

Machine learning on embedded targets

Rust in firmware

FreeRTOS, Zephyr, or other embedded operating systems

Genuine curiosity about the devices you build, not just the bits flying around them

Originally posted on Himalayas