Senior Firmware Engineer; FTL; Rancho Cordova, California

Mission Hires is seeking a Senior Firmware Engineer specializing in Flash Translation Layer (FTL) development for SSD firmware. This role will design, optimize, validate, and debug FTL architecture, including garbage collection, wear leveling, block management, metadata handling, error recovery, RAID flows, and power-loss protection. The ideal candidate brings strong SSD controller/firmware expertise, C/C++ skills, NAND flash knowledge, and the ability to work independently in a collaborative engineering environment.

• Design, develop, and maintain Flash Translation Layer (FTL) architecture, including I/O flows, garbage collection, and wear-leveling algorithms.
• Develop bad-block detection, isolation, lifecycle management, and data-migration mechanisms.
• Design robust metadata structures that enable fast mapping-table reconstruction and reliable system boot.
• Implement mechanisms to prevent and mitigate NAND flash issues, including read disturb, program/erase failures, and retention loss.
• Develop RAID encode and decode flows to support data reliability.
• Design, implement, and validate power-loss protection and recovery algorithms that preserve data consistency and metadata integrity.
• Optimize channel, die, and plane scheduling and parallelism to improve throughput and reduce latency.
• Improve DRAM and SRAM efficiency and reduce write amplification to enhance NAND endurance and SSD performance.
• Develop and analyze FTL traces and logs for performance profiling, debugging, and root-cause analysis.
• Conduct stress, mixed-workload, power-fail, and corner-case testing to validate firmware stability and reliability.
• Collaborate with validation, hardware, and ASIC teams to resolve cross-functional issues and improve system robustness.

• 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 skills and knowledge of data structures.
• Hands-on experience with JTAG or ICE debuggers.
• Experience using version-control systems such as Git.
• Ability to work independently with minimal day-to-day supervision while collaborating effectively in a small-team environment.
• Strong learning agility, execution focus, and team-player mindset.
• Good oral, written, presentation, and technical documentation skills.
• Experience operating logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, or bus protocol analyzers is preferred.
• Familiarity with SATA and PCIe/NVMe protocols is preferred.
• Familiarity with NAND flash protocols is preferred.
• Linux system debugging experience is preferred.
• Fluency in reading and writing Mandarin is preferred.

• 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.