FAE - Principal Field Applications Engineer; Customer Facing​/Design-Win Focused

Principal Field Applications Engineer

We are seeking a Principal-level Field Applications Engineer with a rare combination of deep embedded design expertise and extensive customer-facing experience. This role is ideal for someone who has spent 10+ years working directly with customers in a technical capacity—whether in sales engineering, field applications engineering, customer solutions, or technical consulting—and who thrives on owning an embedded solution from first customer conversation through production and long-term support.

This is not a pure development role and not a pure sales role. You will act as a technical lead, architect, and trusted advisor, helping customers define requirements, win internal buy-in, and successfully deliver production-grade embedded software.

Key Responsibilities

• Act as a primary technical interface to customers, owning relationships from initial engagement through product launch
• Proactively identify new opportunities for design wins by understanding customer roadmaps, pain points, and business drivers
• Translate customer requirements into complete embedded system architectures
• Present and iterate on technical solutions with customer engineering and management teams
• Partner closely with sales to drive design wins to revenue, while independently leading the technical strategy

Embedded System Architecture & Design

• Architect end-to-end embedded solutions, including hardware, firmware, and supporting tools
• Design production-level hardware (schematic design, component selection, design for manufacturability)
• Develop production-level embedded firmware applications in C/C++ for microcontroller-based systems
• Implement RTOS-based designs, bootloaders, firmware update mechanisms, and peripheral drivers
• Adapt and extend reference designs to meet customer-specific requirements

Implementation, Debug & Support

• Own the technical success of customer projects through:
• System bring-up and debugging
• Root-cause analysis of hardware and firmware issues
• Bug fixes and feature enhancements throughout the product lifecycle
• Support customers post-design-win with:
• Production readiness
• Sustaining engineering
• Feature expansion and roadmap alignment

Customer-Facing Experience (Critical)

10+ years in a customer-facing technical role, such as:

• Field Applications Engineer
• Sales Engineer
• Customer Solutions Engineer
• Embedded Systems Consultant

Proven ability to:

• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to diverse audiences
• Build credibility and trust with customer engineering teams
• Balance multiple customer engagements simultaneously

Embedded Technical Expertise

10+ years of hands-on embedded system design experience

• Strong experience with:
• Embedded C/C++
• Microcontrollers and system architecture
• RTOS-based firmware development
• Serial interfaces (I2C, SPI, UART, USB etc.)
• Firmware update and boot loader design
• Git-based workflows

• Hardware design experience including:
• Schematic capture
• Component selection
• Board bring-up and debugging

• Proficiency with lab tools (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, debuggers)

Soft Skills & Mindset

• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and defining solutions from incomplete requirements
• Strong sense of ownership and accountability
• Self-directed, proactive, and comfortable working with minimal supervision
• Enjoys both technical depth and customer interaction
• Able to prioritize across multiple opportunities while maintaining technical excellence
• Able to act as a team leader with help drive large designs from

Nice-to-Have (Differentiators)

• CI/CD for embedded firmware
• Experience with embedded Linux
• Secure boot and secure firmware update
• Networking (wired or wireless)
• Python for automation or tooling
• Experience supporting products through volume production

Travel Time:

0% - 25%

Physical Attributes:

Hearing, Seeing, Talking, Works Alone, Works Around Others

Physical Requirements:

90% Sitting, 10% Standing/Walking

Microchip Technology Inc is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law. For more information on applicable equal employment regulations, please refer to the Know Your Rights:
Workplace Discrimination is Illegal Poster.

To all recruitment agencies:
Microchip Technology Inc. does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our recruiting team or other Microchip employees. Microchip is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.