Platform Lead, Firmware Engineering

📋 Description

• • As the Platform Lead for Firmware Engineering at ALSO, you will be at the forefront of shaping the future of our innovative electric mobility solutions. You will own the foundational software layers that are critical to the performance, reliability, and scalability of all our vertically integrated small EVs. This is a pivotal role where you will define the core firmware architecture, enabling our product teams to efficiently develop, test, and deploy cutting-edge software across our entire vehicle portfolio.
• • Your primary responsibility will be to serve as the single point of contact for all platform-level firmware concerns. This encompasses a wide range of critical components, including the intricate drivers that interface with our hardware, the integration and optimization of our real-time operating system (RTOS), and the robustness of our build infrastructure. You will be the guardian of the software foundation upon which all vehicle functionalities are built.
• • A significant part of your role will involve leading the design, implementation, and architecture of hardware abstraction layers (HALs), peripheral drivers, and board support packages (BSPs). You will work across various MCU families, ensuring that our software is portable, efficient, and optimized for the specific hardware it interacts with. This includes deep dives into common MCU peripherals such as I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, CAN-FD, GPIO, DMA, timers, and ADC/DAC, ensuring their reliable operation.
• • You will take ownership of the RTOS configuration, integration, and performance tuning. This includes making strategic decisions about OS selection, defining task architectures, and meticulously managing system resources to ensure real-time determinism and efficiency. Your expertise will be crucial in optimizing the OS for the unique demands of electric vehicles.
• • Leading the build system is another key pillar of this role. You will manage and evolve our Bazel-based build infrastructure, ensuring that builds are reproducible, dependency management is streamlined, and build configurations are scalable across a diverse range of targets. Your efforts will directly impact the speed and reliability of our development cycles.
• • In close collaboration with Vehicle Leads and Pod Leads, you will define and organize platform targets for each sprint. This requires a delicate balance between investing in essential infrastructure improvements and meeting critical product delivery timelines. Your strategic planning will ensure the platform evolves in lockstep with product development.
• • A core function is enabling other teams. You will partner closely with Vehicle Leads and Pod Leads to deeply understand their platform requirements. By providing stable, well-defined APIs and robust tooling, you will empower them to accelerate their feature development, reducing friction and increasing overall team velocity.
• • You will be instrumental in establishing and enforcing critical architectural standards. This includes defining coding standards, driver interfaces, and platform APIs. Your informed architectural decisions will guide choices regarding MCU selection, memory management strategies, and peripheral allocation, setting the technical direction for firmware development.
• • Driving improvements in our Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) infrastructure is paramount. You will maintain toolchains, manage compiler and linker configurations, and ensure our CI pipelines are fast, reliable, and comprehensive, supporting automated testing and deployment.
• • Enhancing the developer experience is a key objective. You will own the creation and maintenance of platform documentation, onboarding guides, and developer tooling. Your work will aim to significantly improve team velocity and minimize development friction, making it easier for engineers to contribute effectively.
• • You will lead critical efforts in performance optimization. This includes focusing on reducing boot times, minimizing memory footprints, and fine-tuning runtime performance across the entire firmware platform, ensuring our vehicles are responsive and efficient.
• • This role demands a proactive and expert approach, driving platform decisions with minimal direction and acting as a key technical authority within the firmware engineering domain. Your contributions will directly shape the core technology of ALSO's groundbreaking electric vehicles, impacting millions of future rides.