Senior Firmware Engineer (FE) - Milpitas, California

We are seeking a Senior Firmware Engineer to design, maintain, and validate NVMe SSD firmware protocol stacks and management interfaces. You will develop NVMe, PCIe Gen5, SMBus, and I3C functionality; diagnose protocol issues; and partner with validation teams to deliver reliable, interoperable storage-controller firmware. Responsibilities:

• Design and maintain the NVMe protocol stack, including Admin and I/O command processing and Submission/Completion Queue management.
• Ensure firmware compliance with current NVMe specifications and PCIe Gen5 protocol requirements.
• Design and implement SMBus and I3C communication protocols for reliable host-controller data exchange.
• Implement NVMe command parsing, data-transfer mechanisms, completion flows, and multi-namespace support.
• Implement SMBus/I3C read and write commands, status monitoring, temperature and voltage reporting, and control-command handling.
• Develop status-code reporting, Asynchronous Event Notification (AEN), error recovery, timeout, abort, and reset flows.
• Design SMBus/I3C error-detection and retry mechanisms to protect system stability.
• Validate interoperability with NVMe compliance tools, host platforms, and JEDEC/MIPI SMBus and I3C requirements.
• Capture and analyze PCIe/NVMe transactions using protocol analyzers, logic analyzers, and firmware logs.
• Monitor SMBus/I3C transfer timing and error conditions and improve firmware reliability.
• Collaborate with validation teams on compliance, stress, hot-plug, power-management, error-injection, and multi-protocol concurrency testing.
• Provide root-cause analysis and implement fixes for protocol issues identified during validation or in customer environments.

• Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
• At least 3 years of software or firmware applications engineering experience.
• At least 3 years of experience with SSD controller or firmware architecture.
• Strong C/C+ programming and data-structure skills.
• Hands-on experience with JTAG or ICE debuggers.
• Experience using version-control tools such as Git.
• Ability to work independently with minimal day-to-day supervision and contribute effectively in a small team environment.
• Fast learner and collaborative team player.
• Strong oral, written, presentation, and technical documentation skills.

• Competitive salary differentiated by performance.
• Annual merit increases.
• Year-end bonus.
• RSUs for eligible employees.
• Invention and patent awards.
• 401(k) employer matching.
• Length-of-service awards.
• Comprehensive health insurance plans for eligible employees and dependents.