Embedded Systems Engineer at energy startup Bare Metal​/RTOS

Overview

Mesodyne is a startup company revolutionizing power generation with its innovative Light Cell technology using thermophotovoltaics to provide efficient, silent, reliable, long-endurance power from any fuel. By bridging the gap between batteries and internal combustion engines, Light Cell technology provides more than a 10x improvement in endurance for unmanned vehicles, wearables, and various other equipment. At Mesodyne, we are committed to bringing groundbreaking products to the industrial and defense sectors, with multiple existing contracts and numerous upcoming business opportunities.

Embedded Systems Engineer at an energy startup -- Bare Metal/RTOS. We are looking for an experienced Embedded Engineer who lives at the intersection of hardware and software. You will own the firmware architecture for our power generation systems, writing code that controls fuel pumps, manages combustion, and regulates high-temperature thermal loops. You will be in the lab with a debugger on one screen and an oscilloscope on the other, validating that your drivers are robust and your control loops are stable.

We are moving from prototype to product and need an engineer who understands that in a hardware product, "99% works" means "broken."

• Own the firmware architecture:
  Architect and implement robust, thread-safe firmware using C/C++ and FreeRTOS. Define task priorities, manage inter-process communication (queues, semaphores, mutexes), and prevent race conditions.
• Critical logic & functional safety:
  Design and implement fail-safe state machines for combustion systems, thermal management systems, and battery management systems—ensuring the system handles sensor failures or disconnects safely and predictably.
• Bare-metal driver development:
  Write, optimize, and maintain low-level drivers for sensors, valves, and peripherals. Work directly with registers, not just high-level libraries.
• Digital control implementation:
  Translate control laws into efficient C code. Implement PID loops and state estimators, ensuring they run within real-time constraints without blocking safety checks.
• Hardware bring-up & debugging:
  Serve as the primary debugger at the hardware-software boundary. Troubleshoot custom PCBs using oscilloscopes and logic analyzers to validate signal integrity and margin.
• Test automation:
  Develop Python scripts to automate hardware validation, ensuring edge cases and failure modes are tested before deployment.

• Professional experience: 4+ years of professional experience developing embedded software for hardware products that have shipped to customers.
• C/C++ mastery:
  Expert-level proficiency in C/C++. Deep understanding of pointers, memory management, interrupts, etc.
• Defensive programming mindset:
  Write code assuming the hardware will fail. Experience designing fault-tolerant systems for hazardous environments (automotive, medical, or combustion) is highly valued.
• RTOS expertise:
  Proven experience setting up FreeRTOS (or equivalent) from scratch. Able to explain how you have solved deadlocks and stack overflow issues.
• Hardware fluency:
  Able to read electrical schematics, understand datasheet timing diagrams, and comfortably use lab equipment (scopes, analyzers) to debug systems.

This position is based at our facility in Somerville, MA.

To apply , please fill out our application form or email .

Interested in learning more about the Light Cell or scheduling a demonstration?
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