Staff Pre-Silicon Firmware Engineer

The Hardware team at Untether is looking for a Senior or Staff Firmware engineer to work on low-level embedded firmware through all phases of the product life cycle. 

Pre-silicon, you will influence architecture and develop firmware interfaces to allow cross-functional development across hardware, firmware and software teams. You will develop and maintain documentation of the code structure and interfaces and implement routines that initialize hardware modules in our leading-edge AI chips. You will use industry-standard interfaces such as PCIe and DDR, custom hardware developed by Untether AI, and board-level devices such as Power Management ICs. You, along with team members that you will mentor, will verify these routines pre-silicon using an RTL co-simulation framework. You will then help integrate these routines into a complete system involving boot code and system-level interfaces to be verified on FPGA or Emulation platforms. 

Post-silicon, you will be one of the key engineers bringing our products to market.  You will help with the validation and debugging of our chips and boards in our bring-up lab. You will have excellent development and debugging skills to root-cause problems and implement fixes.

***Please note: this position requires in-person work at least twice a week at our HQ in Toronto***

Responsibilities

• Contribute to and review hardware, software, and system architecture
• Develop firmware design documents based on technical requirements.
• Implement firmware and validate it in simulation, on FPGA/Emu, and on real silicon
• Enhance the tools and testbenches necessary for design development.
• Mentor one or more engineers or interns to assist in implementation and debug
• Work closely with hardware designers, software engineers, and project managers to achieve design goals and meet project timelines.

Requirements

• BS/MS/PhD in EE/CE/CS, or equivalent
• 5+ years experience in firmware development for embedded processors and near real-time systems.
• 2+ years experience in RTL simulation (either development or design verification).
• Proven ability to develop and maintain high-quality design documents
• Good verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Experience with RTL simulation and pre-silicon firmware development
• Experience writing low-level firmware code (i.e. interacting with SoC IPs) 
• Experience with leading junior engineers or interns
• Familiar with Register description languages or IP-XACT
• Familiar with RISC-V processor architecture and AMBA bus structures 
• Familiar with debugging tools such as JTAG and gdb.
• Familiar with chip and board bring up activities.

What are some of the perks that you will receive being part of Untether AI?

• Aligned to Untether’s philosophy, our employees enjoy the same perks, regardless of role or level.  In part, these include:
• 20 vacation days
• Strong health and extended health benefits
• Unlimited sick days
• Stock options
• Building chips and software that will change the world

Thinking about applying?

• We’re a pretty welcoming bunch of people.  If we’ve piqued your interest, you’re passionate about the same things we are but you aren’t sure if you check all the boxes, please apply anyway.  We’re a great place to work, an even better place to learn and we focus on both capability and potential!
• Besides being a pretty friendly group, we’re also pretty diverse - ethnically, experientially and in our physical and mental abilities. If you are someone who needs accommodation during the interview process and/or in the workplace, please send a note along with your resume to careers@untether.ai and we’ll be in touch.  

A little bit more about Untether AI

Untether AI has developed a groundbreaking new architecture that brings neural net inference to new levels of performance and efficiency.  We’ve already sold our product to smart clients who want to get in at ground zero.  We’ve done this while continuing to improve our technology creating ultra-efficient, high performance AI chips that eliminates the data movement bottleneck that costs energy and performance in traditional architectures.  We’re a team made up of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs and have the support of tier one investors. Join us to be part of something big - a chance to create the future of AI.