Senior Firmware Engineer

Cellular Origins

Cell therapies are changing how we treat some of the most devastating diseases, by using a patient’s own cells as the treatment. To bring these therapies to many more people, manufacturing must change too, becoming far more scalable, reliable and efficient. At Cellular Origins you’ll help build the firmware that drives our robotic manufacturing technology, so more patients can access life-changing treatments sooner.

Cell therapies are changing how we treat some of the most devastating diseases, by using a patient’s own cells as the treatment. To bring these therapies to many more people, manufacturing must change too, becoming far more scalable, reliable and efficient. At Cellular Origins you’ll help build the firmware that drives our robotic manufacturing technology, so more patients can access life-changing treatments sooner.

You’ll join a multidisciplinary team of engineers and scientists working on our core automation platform, from first prototypes through to production systems. You’ll design, implement and test firmware that runs on ARM microcontrollers, work directly with hardware on the bench, and help shape technical decisions across firmware, electronics and the wider system.

This is not a role confined to the firmware team: you may spend as much time working with electronics, mechanical, automation and systems engineers, and with biologists, as you do with other firmware or software engineers. You’ll need to enjoy crossing disciplinary boundaries and learning enough about the wider system to help make it work as one coherent whole.

• Own firmware development for key parts of our core technology, from requirements and architecture through implementation, verification and support in production.
• Write and review high-quality C for ARM microcontrollers (primarily STM
  32), focusing on robust, maintainable and testable code.
• Design and maintain automated tests for embedded firmware, including unit, integration and hardware-in-the-loop, and integrate them into continuous integration workflows.
• Turn system needs into clear firmware requirements and interfaces, working directly with electronics, mechanical, automation and software engineers, plus biologists.
• Make and communicate technical decisions within your area, balancing engineering rigour, maintainability and delivery speed, and support other engineers through design discussions and code reviews.
• Debug complex embedded-system issues using tools such as debug probes, oscilloscopes, multimeters and logic analysers, getting to the root cause of tricky problems.
• Use Linux-based tools and development environments as part of your day-to-day work.
• Support and occasionally develop custom test equipment for internal use, helping the wider team move faster.
• Use higher-level languages such as Python, C# or Java to build supporting tools and simple GUIs for debugging, testing or internal users.

• Turn your hand to electronics design and prototype modification when needed, working with electronics engineers to shape interfaces and resolve cross-discipline issues.
• Develop and optimise hard real-time algorithms for motion control, sensing or safety-critical functions.
• Use Docker and containers to create reliable, repeatable development and test environments.
• Contribute to embedded Linux software and the interfaces between it and our microcontroller firmware.

You enjoy seeing firmware come to life in real hardware, and you like being close to the bench, motors and sensors rather than hidden away from the physical system. You are comfortable owning firmware end to end, from first requirements and architecture…