EQL Tech

Global AI startup recruitment partner

Founding Engineer - Firmware/Systems

Embedded EngineeringConfirmed live in the last 24 hours

Full-timeSan Francisco, CA, USA

About the Job

Requirements

Requires 1–4 years of software engineering experience, with more experience acceptable for exceptional candidates.
Requires founding-engineer or early-startup experience, or experience at an intense-culture company such as Tesla, SpaceX, Anduril, or a top Y Combinator company.
Requires real firmware or embedded experience, including vendor firmware work, embedded Linux or real-time operating systems or device software development kits, and hardware specification writing.
Requires back-end-leaning full-stack experience on a modern stack such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Supabase, or Railway, with comfort in C, C++, or Rust.
Requires the ability to own a real-time multimodal pipeline end-to-end.

Responsibilities

Flash, patch, and adapt vendor firmware; work in embedded Linux, real-time operating systems, or device software development kits.
Evaluate camera and sensor hardware and define specifications for field of view, battery, thermal performance, compute, and latency with the hardware original design manufacturer partner.
Build backend systems on a modern startup stack, working close to the hardware in C, C++, or Rust.
Own a real-time multimodal pipeline end-to-end, including capture and encoding, low-latency transport, and low-latency model serving.

Desired Qualifications

Experience with edge or on-device inference.
Experience with on-premises or air-gapped deployment in aerospace, defense, or critical infrastructure.
Hardware-to-software integration experience across wearables, cameras, robotics, Internet of Things devices, or drones.

Founding Engineer (Firmware/Systems)

EQL Tech · Burlingame, United States · Full-time · Posted 2026-07-28

Salary: USD 150,000–200,000

Workplace: on_site

Department: Engineering, Product & Tech

Description

Founding Engineer (Firmware/Systems)

On-site · Engineering, Product & Tech · Full time San Francisco, California, United States

Description

Our client is a stealth, seed-stage startup building an AI-powered wearable platform for industrial field technicians - running a real-time computer-vision and agentic AI system directly on smart-glasses hardware, live today with major data-center, energy, and industrial customers across multiple countries. Backed by a $5M seed round and founded by researchers from Harvard/NASA (computer vision, published at NeurIPS and ICCV) and MIT (machine learning, ex-quant researcher).

The bet: computer vision and agentic vision-language models (VLMs) grounded in real integrations with legacy enterprise systems (ServiceNow, SAP, Salesforce) - not another LLM wrapper. The industrial data this generates is also laying the groundwork for robotics automation down the line.

This is the systems seat closest to the hardware: real work on the wearable device itself, plus the backend and edge layers around it. Firmware experience is a genuine requirement here.

What you'll do

Flash, patch, and adapt vendor firmware; work in embedded Linux/RTOS or device SDKs
Evaluate camera/sensor hardware and define specs (FOV, battery, thermal, compute, latency) alongside the hardware ODM partner
Build backend systems on a modern startup stack, comfortable close to the metal (C/C++/Rust)
Own a real-time multimodal pipeline end-to-end: capture/encoding, low-latency transport, low-latency model serving

Location & culture

Fully on-site in the SF Bay Area. The founding team lives and works together for the first several months in a shared house before moving to a standard office — expect an intense, in-person, high-ownership culture. Hours flex for exceptional, senior talent; the priority is getting the right person, not saving on salary.

Requirements

Essential

1–4 years software engineering (more if exceptional); founding-engineer/early-startup experience, or from an intense-culture company (e.g. Tesla, SpaceX, Anduril, top YC)
Real firmware/embedded experience: vendor firmware work, embedded Linux/RTOS or device SDKs, hardware spec-writing
Back-end-leaning full-stack on a modern stack (AWS, GCP, Supabase, Railway), comfortable in C/C++/Rust
Owns a real-time multimodal pipeline end-to-end

Particularly valuable

Edge/on-device inference
On-prem/air-gapped deployment experience (aerospace, defense, critical infrastructure)
Hardware-to-software integration across wearables, cameras, robotics, IoT, or drones

Benefits

Compensation & benefits

Base: $150K–$200K
Equity: 2%–3% (flexed higher for exceptional candidates)
Visa sponsorship available (O-1, TN, E-3, H-1B1, H-1B transfer, F-1 OPT/STEM OPT)

How to apply: resume plus a short description of a firmware/embedded system you've shipped.

Apply

Apply at EQL Tech

About the Company

EQL Tech

Global AI startup recruitment partner

Eql Tech connects AI-native startups and high-growth tech scale-ups with top talent in engineering, sales, and GTM roles across the US and UK, acting as a strategic talent partner. It offers retained executive search, contingent hiring, and embedded talent solutions, plus interim leadership, talent advisory, and managed services to run a company’s recruitment function. The firm differentiates itself through sector specialization, a multi-service approach, and a leadership team with crosses between finance, education, and AI. Its goal is to help growing tech companies scale by aligning talent strategy with business objectives.

Company size: Not listed
Company stage: Not listed
Total funding: Not listed
Headquarters: Austin, TX
Founded: 2023

Recently Posted Jobs

Explore more opportunities at EQL Tech

See more jobs