Lead Firmware Engineer – Power Conversion Control

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in California.

📋 Description

• Oversee real-time control firmware for bidirectional DC/DC power conversion stages.

• Develop control loops for four-switch buck-boost stages, multiphase interleaved operation, and phase current balancing.

• Create compensators, mode arbitration, scheduler/ISR architecture, and platform abstraction within a portable DC/DC control library.

• Implement converter protections such as cycle-by-cycle current limit, overvoltage, undervoltage, thermal derating, gate-drive fault management, and safe-state transitions.

• Validate firmware against control models using closed-loop simulation and defined-tolerance response comparison.

• Design and maintain deterministic fast-control and supervisory tasks with measured jitter and documented worst-case execution time.

• Configure and validate PWM, ADC, comparator, DAC, trigger, sampling, dead-time, and protection architectures.

• Measure sampling, computational, and PWM update latency on target systems and communicate findings to the controls engineer.

• Implement various operating modes including constant current, constant voltage, constant power, current limit, soft-start, buck-to-boost transition, phase shedding, and charge/discharge reversal.

• Bring up converter hardware in the lab through comprehensive envelope characterization, including gate-drive debugging, dead-time optimization, and shoot-through avoidance.

• Support loop gain, transient response, and efficiency testing, while troubleshooting discrepancies between models and hardware.

• Develop on-target unit tests and hardware-in-the-loop regression infrastructure.

• Write firmware specifications and certification verification evidence in compliance with UL 1973, UL 1998, and UL 9540 standards.

• Act as the technical lead, review control and embedded code, and participate in hardware design reviews.

⛳️ Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or equivalent demonstrated experience.

• At least six years of experience in developing production embedded firmware in C for resource-constrained real-time systems.

• Experience with production control firmware for switched-mode power converters, inverters, or motor drives.

• Proficient understanding of PID and 2p2z/3p3z difference equations, discretization, sampling and computational delay, saturation, and anti-windup techniques.

• Expertise in high-resolution PWM, PWM-triggered ADC, analog comparators, DACs, and DMA.

• Competence in fixed-point arithmetic, including Q-format scaling, range and overflow analysis, and saturating behavior.

• Experience in deterministic ISR design under strict timing constraints with the ability to measure and justify worst-case execution times.

• Independent lab skills with tools such as oscilloscopes, isolated and differential probes, current probes, electronic loads, and bidirectional power supplies.

• Familiarity with version control, code reviews, specifications, and test evidence documentation.

• Must be eligible to work in the United States; visa sponsorship is not available.

• Preferred qualifications: Experience with dsPIC, dsPIC33C/33CK/33CH, MPLAB X, XC16, and the Microchip digital power ecosystem.

• Preferred qualifications: Knowledge of bidirectional and multiphase interleaved converter control, average current mode control, GaN/SiC, ARM Cortex-M, PLECS, MATLAB/Simulink, network analyzer measurements, battery energy storage/EV charging/PV/grid-interactive converters, functional safety and certification, MISRA C, static analysis, CAN/CANopen, and portable control libraries.

🏝️ Benefits

• Equity options included in the compensation package.

• Comprehensive healthcare benefits covering medical, dental, and vision.

• Generous paid time off policy.

• Paid holidays included in the PTO policy.