T

Terranova

Sequesters CO2 with underground wood chips

Embedded Systems Engineer

Full-Time
No salary listed
Mid
Bachelor's
Berkeley, CA, USA
In Person
Software EngineeringEmbedded Engineering
No H1B Sponsorship

About the job

Requirements
  • A hands-on engineer who can take embedded ideas from schematic to prototype to production.
  • Develop and debug embedded firmware in C and C++ with FreeRTOS for STM32 or similar ARM Cortex-M systems.
  • Design and review multilayer mixed-signal schematics and printed circuit boards in Altium Designer.
  • Integrate sensors, radios, and power electronics using reliable, low-latency I²C, SPI, UART, CAN, and SDIO interfaces.
  • Design and integrate long-range low-power wireless systems such as XBee and LoRa into deployed platforms.
  • Build and maintain Yocto Linux images for embedded gateways and edge compute systems.
  • Contribute to backend services and tooling in Go and TypeScript, including SQL data layers and Vue or React frontends.
  • Deploy and operate cloud infrastructure on Google Cloud and Cloudflare's serverless platform.
  • Characterize and optimize power budgets, electromagnetic interference performance, and manufacturability.
  • Bring up, test, and validate hardware prototypes through design for manufacturability and design for test cycles.
  • Support system integration and field debugging of deployed robotic platforms.
  • Work long days, six-day workweeks, and extended field hours as required by the startup environment.
  • Hold a Bachelor's degree or higher in Electrical Engineering or a related field.
  • Have U.S. permanent residency.
Responsibilities
  • Develop and debug embedded firmware in C and C++ with FreeRTOS for STM32 or similar ARM Cortex-M systems.
  • Design and review multilayer mixed-signal schematics and printed circuit boards in Altium Designer.
  • Integrate sensors, radios, and power electronics with reliable, low-latency I²C, SPI, UART, CAN, and SDIO interfaces.
  • Design and integrate long-range low-power wireless systems such as XBee and LoRa into deployed platforms.
  • Build and maintain Yocto Linux images for embedded gateways and edge compute systems.
  • Contribute to backend services and tooling in Go and TypeScript, including SQL data layers and Vue or React frontends.
  • Deploy and operate cloud infrastructure on Google Cloud and Cloudflare's serverless platform.
  • Characterize and optimize power budgets, electromagnetic interference performance, and manufacturability.
  • Bring up, test, and validate hardware prototypes through design for manufacturability and design for test cycles.
  • Support system integration and field debugging of deployed robotic platforms.
Desired Qualifications
  • Multilayer mixed-signal printed circuit board design in KiCad or Altium.
  • Experience developing ARM microcontroller firmware for STM32, ESP32, or RP2040 in C or C++ with FreeRTOS or Zephyr.
  • Experience with radio frequency and long-range low-power wireless systems, including XBee and LoRa.
  • Experience with Yocto or OpenEmbedded Linux build systems.
  • Experience developing applications in Go and TypeScript.
  • Experience with SQL and relational data modeling.
  • Experience developing Vue and/or React frontends.
  • Experience with Google Cloud and Cloudflare serverless services, including Workers, Durable Objects, and R2.
  • Working knowledge of internet fundamentals, including DNS.
  • Experience using SWD/JTAG, logic analyzers such as Saleae, and oscilloscopes.
  • Experience with over-the-air update systems and bootloaders.
  • Experience developing DMA-backed peripheral drivers.
  • Experience with design for manufacturability and design for test methodologies.
  • Experience owning complex robotic systems with multiple sensors, motors, interfaces, and printed circuit board design.
  • A portfolio demonstrating maker or hardware-building projects.

About the company

Terranova provides carbon credits by sequestering carbon in the ground using underground wood chips to raise land and prevent inundation of plots and structures. The wood chips method works by distributing and burying wood chips underground, offering a low-cost way to elevate land and capture CO2 in trees and soil; the credits are sold through their website. The company differentiates itself through a low-cost, scalable approach to elevation compared with traditional methods and by tying forest-management incentives to chip-based sequestration, including encouraging removal of dead trees to prevent future fires that would release CO2. The goal is to build a market for wood chips that incentivizes local forest stewardship and CO2 sequestration, encapsulated in the motto “Think Globally, Sequester Locally.”

Company Size

11-50

Company Stage

Seed

Total Funding

$7M

Headquarters

San Rafael, California

Founded

2021

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Terranova closed a $7 million seed round in November 2025, three times oversubscribed.
  • Its San Rafael target, $92 million, undercuts $500 million to $900 million alternatives.
  • The official 2026 site shows active commercialization for housing, commercial, industrial, and wetland projects.

What critics are saying

  • San Rafael’s first field pilots in 2026 still face permitting, geology, and execution failure.
  • TechCrunch reported experts questioning earthquake impacts from consolidated wood slurry underground.
  • Seawalls and dikes remain proven alternatives; one bad pilot can kill municipal adoption.

What makes Terranova unique

  • Terranova’s November 2025 seed round backed Outlander and Congruent, validating category leadership.
  • The Ark system raises one acre one foot per day through autonomous wood-slurry injection.
  • The company sells land elevation plus carbon credits, linking flood defense and decarbonization.

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Benefits

  • Relocation Assistance

Company News

TechCrunch
Nov 7th, 2025
Exclusive: How one founder plans to save cities from flooding with terraforming robots | TechCrunch

Instead of building seawalls or dikes, Terranova has developed a new way to raise cities to protect them from sea-level rise.