Embedded Systems Engineer
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Mode - Onsite at client location/office
Duration: 1+ years
Visa restrictions None
Client: Confidential
Embedded Systems Engineer
Matter, IoT Connectivity & Smart Home Systems
Role: Embedded Systems Engineer
Experience Level: 8+ Years
Role Overview
We are seeking an experienced and self-driven Mid to Senior Embedded Systems Engineer to drive the design, development, and deployment of connected smart home devices for our US-based client. In this role, you will be instrumental in building next-generation IoT hardware solutions powered by the Matter standard across Wi-Fi and Thread, ensuring seamless multi-admin interoperability with major smart home ecosystems including Apple Home, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa.
You will lead end-to-end firmware development across resource-constrained RTOS environments, encompassing BLE provisioning, Open Thread Border Router (OTBR) infrastructure, secure Azure IoT Hub cloud connectivity, and robust, fail-safe Over-the-Air (OTA) update architectures.
Key Responsibilities
Matter Protocol Architecture & Implementation: Architect, implement, and maintain Matter-over-Wifi and Matter-over-Thread firmware solutions, guaranteeing seamless multi-admin commission ability and interoperability across Apple Home, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa ecosystems.
BLE Commissioning & Onboarding: Design, implement, and optimize Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) commissioning flows, secure onboarding handshakes, and custom BLE services/GATT profiles for connected device provisioning.
Secure Cloud & IoT Hub Connectivity: Develop robust device-to-cloud communications targeting Azure IoT Hub using MQTT and TLS/SSL. Implement secure zero-touch device provisioning (DPS), high-throughput telemetry pipelines, device twins, and remote device management.
Thread Mesh & OTBR Integration: Enable, configure, and integrate OpenThread Border Router (OTBR) functionality, managing border routing, Thread mesh topologies, and network synchronization across 802.15.4 networks.
Resilient OTA Update Mechanisms: Design, implement, and rigorously validate dual-bank / fail-safe Over-the-Air (OTA) firmware update frameworks, ensuring image cryptographic signing, rollback prevention, and power-interruption resilience.
Ecosystem Interoperability & Compliance: Evaluate, test, and resolve interoperability challenges with smart home ecosystems (Works with Google Home, Apple HomeKit/Matter, Amazon Alexa), preparing products for formal CSA Matter certification.
Embedded Firmware Engineering: Develop clean, maintainable, production-ready C/C++ firmware running on modern RTOS kernels (FreeRTOS / Zephyr), optimizing CPU utilization, low-power sleep modes, and memory footprints.
Required Technical Skills & Qualifications
Core Language Proficiency: 8+ years of embedded software development experience utilizing modern C and C++ in commercial, production-grade products.
IoT Protocols & Connectivity: Strong hands-on experience with Matter, Thread (OpenThread), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE 5.x), and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n/ax) networking stacks.
RTOS Mastery: Deep proficiency working with FreeRTOS and/or Zephyr RTOS, including preemptive multitasking, inter-process communication (IPC), memory allocators, and hardware abstraction layers.
Device Security & Cryptography: Solid understanding of embedded security concepts, including TLS/SSL handshakes, X.509 certificate management, public key infrastructure (PKI), secure boot, and hardware security elements / crypto accelerators.
Cloud Protocols & Integration: Demonstrated experience connecting embedded devices to cloud platforms (specifically Azure IoT Hub or AWS IoT Core) via MQTT/WebSockets, handling device provisioning, telemetry, and bidirectional RPCs.
OTA Frameworks & Bootloaders: Demonstrated track record of implementing and debugging bootloaders (such as MCUBoot or proprietary dual-bank bootloaders) and resilient OTA update lifecycles.
Debugging & Instrumentation: Skilled in using hardware debugging tools (JTAG, SWD, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes) and network protocol analyzers (Wireshark packet sniffing for 802.15.4/Thread and BLE).
Hardware Debugging & Protocol Analysis: Proficiency with JTAG/SWD debuggers, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and Wireshark sniffer captures for BLE and 802.15.4/Thread packets.
Preferred Qualifications
NXP Wireless MCU / RW612: Direct experience with NXP RW610/RW612 family, MCUXpresso SDK, NXP Matter SDK, and EdgeLock security features.
Multi-Radio Coexistence: Understanding of concurrent Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth LE, and 802.15.4 co-existence and RF performance tuning.
Silicon Platform Expertise: Experience with major IoT SoC platforms such as,
Nordic (nRF5340, nRF52840) or Espressif (ESP32-S3, ESP32-C6) preferred.
CSA Matter Certification: Prior experience taking a commercial IoT product through formal Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) Matter certification and utilizing standard Matter test harnesses.
Education: Bachelor's or master's degree in computer engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience.
