Lead Embedded Firmware Engineer

Position: Lead Embedded Firmware Engineer Full Time)
Very is a fully distributed technology firm led by expert problem-solvers who create efficient, scalable solutions that move commercial, industrial, and consumer products from pilot to production in record time.

We believe that real innovation happens in the grind — working shoulder to shoulder with clients who are building the future. Our team thrives on that energy. When we’re not helping clients deliver business-critical outcomes, we’re refining our craft and celebrating what it means to do hard things well.

We’ve built a collaborative, tight-knit culture that thrives in both remote and in-person settings. We’ve won numerous workplace awards over the years, including Great Place to Work certification and recognition from Parity.org as a Best Company for Women to Advance.

Our clients include well-known brands like Vizio, Peloton, Clear, iHeart Radio, and Fellowes — all determined to leverage connected devices and AI to drive meaningful impact. Our job is simple: help them win.

About This Role
We are seeking a lead firmware engineer with 8+ years of professional embedded development experience who has deep expertise building production embedded systems on modern wireless MCU platforms such as Espressif ESP
32. In this role, you’ll own the device firmware stack end to end, from schematic review and board bring-up through production firmware, OTA, and certification, while setting technical direction and mentoring the engineers around you.

What You’ll Be Working On
We dedicate each engineer to a single project in order to promote focus and minimize context switching. You will be developing production-grade firmware for connected devices from bring-up through production deployment and ongoing maintenance.

You will own firmware development across the full device lifecycle, including schematic review, board bring-up, driver integration, BLE provisioning, cloud connectivity, OTA updates, and certification readiness.

You will also participate in hardware debugging and validation using tools such as JTAG/SWD, logic analyzers, and protocol sniffers to diagnose low-level issues across firmware, hardware, and network layers.

You’ll lead firmware technical decisions and collaborate closely with hardware engineers, contract manufacturers, client stakeholders, and cross-functional teams to deliver production-ready devices.

This role involves debugging complex, real-world interoperability issues across connected-device ecosystems, requiring deep protocol-level understanding and hands‑on problem solving.

Responsibilities

Own firmware architecture and technical direction, making key design decisions and tradeoffs

Serve as the primary firmware point of contact for the client, translating product requirements into technical plans and estimates

Plan and prioritize firmware work, identifying risks and dependencies early

Lead code reviews and set firmware coding, testing, and release standards

Mentor and guide other engineers on the team

Design, develop, and maintain production firmware for ESP
32-based connected devices using ESP-IDF

Bring up new hardware and integrate drivers for sensors, actuators, LEDs, and other peripherals

Implement BLE provisioning, Wi-Fi connectivity, and secure cloud communication with AWS IoT Core over MQTT

Build and maintain reliable OTA update mechanisms, including rollback and staged rollouts

Debug and resolve issues across firmware, hardware, wireless, and cloud layers, from development through production

Partner with hardware engineers and contract manufacturers on factory flashing, device provisioning, and production readiness

Support certification (e.g., FCC) and hardware build phases (EVT/DVT/PVT)

Collaborate with mobile and backend teams on device data models, telemetry, and device-to-cloud…