About the role
<p style="text-align:start;"><strong><span style="color:#121317">About 1X</span></strong></p><p style="text-align:start;"><span style="color:#121317">We’re an AI and robotics company based in San Carlos, California, on a mission to build a truly abundant society through general‑purpose robots capable of performing any kind of work autonomously.</span></p><p style="text-align:start;"><span style="color:#121317"><br>We believe that to truly understand the world and grow in intelligence, humanoid robots must live and learn alongside us. That’s why we’re focused on developing friendly home robots designed to integrate seamlessly into everyday life.<br></span></p><p style="text-align:start;"><span style="color:#121317">We’re looking for curious, driven, and passionate people who want to help shape the future of robotics and AI. If this mission excites you, we’d be thrilled to hear from you and explore how you might contribute to our journey.</span></p><p style="min-height: 1.7em;"></p><p><strong><span style="color:#4F4749">Role Overview</span></strong></p><p><span style="font-size:1.1em">We are looking for a cross-functional Firmware or Embedded Engineer to develop and maintain</span><br><span style="font-size:1.1em">low-level firmware that supports and enables system-level hardware architecture. In this role,</span><br><span style="font-size:1.1em">you will focus on robust, maintainable, and well-structured embedded software that spans</span><br><span style="font-size:1.1em">multiple hardware domains and directly informs architectural decisions.</span><br></p><p><span style="font-size:1.1em">You will work closely with hardware architects, electrical engineers, systems engineers, and test</span><br><span style="font-size:1.1em">engineers to ensure firmware reliably bridges hardware capabilities and higher-level system</span><br><span style="font-size:1.1em">requirements across prototype and production platforms.</span><br></p><p><span style="font-size:1.1em">The system is a humanoid robot with 20+ distributed embedded nodes that must communicate</span><br><span style="font-size:1.1em">deterministically, fail safely, and operate continuously in uncontrolled environments. This is a</span><br><span style="font-size:1.1em">new product category. Established playbooks from adjacent industries are useful starting points,</span><br><span style="font-size:1.1em">but many of the problems you will encounter do not have known solutions. The ideal candidate</span><br><span style="font-size:1.1em">reasons from first principles, works comfortably at the boundary between firmware and</span><br><span style="font-size:1.1em">hardware, and is energized rather than frustrated by problems that require novel approaches.</span><br></p><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Responsibilities</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"><br></span></p><ul><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Develop and maintain firmware for the deterministic communication bus connecting 20+<br>embedded nodes to a central controller, including cyclic data exchange, distributed clock<br>synchronization, and protocol state management</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Design real-time data interfaces and acyclic communication channels for device<br>configuration, parameterization, and runtime diagnostics</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Architect safety communication firmware that delivers safe shutdown commands within<br>deterministic time bounds, using black channel principles (independent CRC, watchdog,<br>sequence validation) over untrusted transport</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Responsible for the testing, validation, and verification of initial firmware releases to<br>ensure functionality, reliability, and performance requirements are met</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Integrate network-based safety functions with hardware mechanisms including external<br>watchdogs, gate driver enables, and hardwired safe-state paths</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Collaborate with hardware architects to define interfaces, requirements, and trade-offs;<br>support bring-up, integration, and debugging of new platforms</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Implement drivers and hardware abstraction layers for embedded bus interface </span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">(CAN,CANopen, SPI, I²C, UART) used for communication with battery management, sensors,<br>and peripheral ICs.</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Design secure bootloader architecture with cryptographic signing and validated rollback<br>for firmware updates delivered over the communication bus</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Develop diagnostic and telemetry infrastructure: logging, error counters, communication<br>statistics, and DFT hooks for production end-of-line validation</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Evaluate network topology and redundanc