Staff Firmware Development Engineer

Staff Firmware Development Engineer

Company: EFFECT Photonics
Location: Eindhoven, Netherlands
Posted on: Mar 31, 2026

About

EFFECT Photonics is a technology scale‑up founded in Eindhoven. In our office in the Netherlands, we focus on developing advanced laser solutions for optical communication systems, built around integrated photonics chips on the indium phosphide platform.

We value ownership. Our new colleague will be given the autonomy to take charge of their projects and drive innovative solutions. We work in a multi‑disciplinary environment, where the new colleague will be the owner of the firmware behaviour and can expand their knowledge in areas such as electronics, physics, and telecommunication.

Role Overview

We are seeking to expand our team with a highly skilled Firmware Development Engineer with experience in driving embedded software projects from architecture definition to product release. Ideal candidate should have electrical engineering, telecommunication or computer science background with exposure to real‑time control, experienced with mixed signal microcontrollers also when paired with external analog front‑ends and preferably used in telecom equipment. The role involves collaboration with a broader team on cross‑functional topics, e.g., electronics design, optical‑subassembly (OSA) behaviour and integration into the third‑party host systems.

Responsibilities

• Firmware development and testing for OSAs, and test infrastructure.
• Develop test cases and ensure high firmware reliability in all corner cases.
• Verify firmware behaviour on products and prototypes, including debugging electrical interfaces.
• Quickly develop into a go‑to person on firmware behaviour for the optical sub‑assembly.
• Contribute to firmware architecture development and eventually own it.

Requirements

• Master's degree in electrical engineering, telecommunication, or similar; to be able to judge the impact of firmware behaviour on the rest of the assembly.
• Minimum 8 years of relevant experience, primarily firmware development in C, C++ for mixed signal microcontrollers, preferably ARM‑based. Current implementation is bare metal, but RTOS experience is a plus.
• Demonstrated ability to own firmware development process, write clean code, understand, and review existing code.
• Extensive experience with MCU peripheral control: Timer, SPI, I2C, UART, ADC, DAC, DMA, Flash controller, etc., including advanced operation modes where peripherals are DMA scheduled.
• Experience interfacing with external analogue front‑ends, memories, and power converters.
• Proficient in handling shared resources, including critical sections to prevent shared resource usage in interrupts.
• Experience in state machine implementation with extensive self‑testing.
• Good knowledge of Git and the Atlassian tool suite (Jira, Bitbucket, Confluence).
• Experienced with Doxygen or comparable software documentation tools.
• Sufficient Python mastery for test and deployment automation, and basic firmware characterization scripting. Remote instrument control is a plus.
• Basic knowledge of control theory, e.g., feedback loops, PID controllers, and basic parameter calibration. Advanced control theory knowledge is a plus.
• Experience in simple linear filter design and implementation in firmware.
• Sufficient electronics knowledge to correctly implement firmware drivers for MCU electrical interfaces and contribute to review from firmware development perspective.
• Proficient in using measurement equipment to verify and debug communication and A/D interfaces.
• Experience with firmware development for optical communication modules or subassemblies is a plus.

Additional Information

• Opleidingsniveau: HBO
• Carrièreniveau: Ervaren
• Uren: 1 – 40 uur per week