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Senior Embedded/Firmware Engineer (freelance)

intent

Canada, Germany, India, Israel, United Kingdom +1 moreremotePosted 1 month ago
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Skill Required

Firmware-EngineeringEmbedded-Systems-EngineeringEmbedded-Software-DevelopmentIoT-EngineeringHardware-EngineeringSenior-Embedded-EngineerSenior-Firmware-EngineerSenior-Embedded-Systems-EngineerLead-Embedded-Firmware-EngineerSenior-Embedded-Software-DeveloperPrincipal-Embedded-Systems-EngineerFirmware EngineerFirmwareEmbedded CArduinoPrototypingnetworkingWebSocketdesigningwrittenPythonMQTTC++AzureCloudDesign PatternsMicrocontrollerAWSGCPAIContract

Key highlights

  • 135-180 PLN/h net B2B
  • 4+ years of professional firmware development required
  • Fully remote with flexible hours
  • Path to permanent contract with full benefits after 3 months
  • ESP32 and STM32 production experience required
  • Evening calls with US clients (up to ~20:00 CET) part of the role

Role overview

If you're a firmware engineer equally comfortable reading schematics and writing C, with deep experience in ESP32 or STM32 projects, this freelance role offers a path to a permanent position. You’ll work on connected devices (wearables, smart audio, health-tech hardware) for high-profile clients, tackling challenges like BLE stacks, power budgets, and sensor pipelines. The role is fully remote with flexible hours, and after a 3-month trial period, there’s potential for a permanent contract with full benefits. The team values ownership, curiosity, and AI-native workflows, and expects engineers who ask 'why' before 'how' and dig into hardware when needed.

Responsibilities

  • Plan, develop, and ship firmware for connected devices: wearables, audio, health-tech hardware
  • Gather and analyze requirements from clients, then turn them into something that actually works on real silicon
  • Consult clients and internal teams on stacks, tools, and trade-offs
  • Work side by side with mobile, backend, and QA to make sure the device and its companion app actually understand each other over BLE
  • Test firmware releases and write the documentation that future-you will thank present-you for
  • Estimate your own work and flag risks before they become blockers
  • Push for better practices: code reviews, patterns, knowledge-sharing inside and outside the chapter
  • Use AI tools as part of your daily workflow, not as a party trick

Requirements

  • 4+ years of professional firmware development
  • Strong C/C++ for embedded systems (not 'I dabbled in microcontrollers in school')
  • Hands-on ESP32 experience, including ESP-IDF and ESP-ADF
  • STM32 experience in production projects
  • Solid Bluetooth knowledge: BLE, Bluetooth Mesh, and comfort across the stack layers
  • Toolchain fluency: CMake, GCC, Python-based tooling
  • Familiarity with IoT protocols like MQTT and WebSockets
  • A feel for the connected device landscape: IoT, home automation, wearables, automotive
  • English at B2+, written and spoken, because our clients are mostly US-based
  • Self-reliance, ownership, and the kind of communication where people don't have to guess what you meant

Nice to have

  • Rapid hardware prototyping on Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, Nucleo
  • Working knowledge of LoRa, Zigbee, Thread, Wi-Fi, and other networking standards
  • Fleet deployment and management with AWS IoT Core, GCP Cloud IoT, Azure IoT, or similar
  • Cryptography in embedded contexts
  • Audio paths: encoding, decoding, mixers
  • Machine learning on embedded targets
  • Rust in firmware
  • FreeRTOS, Zephyr, or other embedded operating systems
  • Genuine curiosity about the devices you build, not just the bits flying around them

Benefits

  • 135-180 PLN/h net B2B, depending on your experience
  • Truly flexible hours: you organize your day
  • Fully remote, with pet-friendly Warsaw office + Gdansk cowork if you want them
  • Access to internal knowledge-sharing: tech talks, experiments, side projects
  • After 3 months, potential path to permanent contract with fixed monthly salary, 26 days paid leave, 10 sick days, Saltus medical care, and a training budget

Additional details

  • Freelance, time & material basis: paid for the hours you actually work on real client projects
  • First three months are about figuring out if we're a good match, depending on the work itself, the project pipeline, and business timing
  • Fully remote. Pet-friendly office in Warsaw and coworking space in Gdansk are available but optional
  • Working hours are flexible: most of the team operates between 10:00 and 18:00 CET, with meetings in that window
  • Evening calls with US-based clients (up to ~20:00) are part of the rhythm, sometimes a couple of times a week, always planned ahead
  • Part of the Firmware & Hardware chapter for knowledge-sharing, and on a project squad led by a PM for day-to-day delivery
  • No paid leave or medical benefits during the freelance period; those come with the permanent contract
  • Recruitment process is in English, with all interviews recorded for internal evaluation
  • Application process: screening questions, HR call (~45 min), technical meeting (~90 min), final feedback within a few days
  • First weeks: space to ramp up, paired with a technical buddy, progressively bigger tasks, early and frequent feedback
  • intent is an equal opportunity employer. Send CV and a few words about why this caught your eye. Bonus points for sharing something you've built that made you proud, ideally with firmware behaving under unexpected conditions
  • Originally posted on Himalayas
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