Hardware Systems & Firmware Engineer Job at Saferide in San Diego

Overview

Saferide is building the universal plug-and-play compute and vision platform for vehicles. Our mission is to eliminate 80–90% of road deaths by bringing advanced driver assistance and connectivity to the 1.5 billion cars already on the road. We have built the first true vision-based solution to road safety, and our product is designed to make every car safer, smarter, and software-defined.

Role Overview

We are looking for our first Hardware Systems & Firmware Engineer to own system releases and quality across Saferide’s hardware and firmware stack. This role is hands-on with hardware, board-level bring-up, and firmware validation, ensuring that Saferide devices operate reliably across hundreds of vehicle platforms, CANbus protocols, and production environments.

Responsibilities

• Hardware and Firmware Integration
• Design, build, and maintain Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) test setups for embedded systems validation.
• Support board bring-up, firmware flashing, and debugging at the hardware level.
• Validate bootloaders, drivers, and board support packages (BSPs).
• Embedded Software Release Engineering
• Develop, maintain, and optimize CI/CD pipelines for embedded firmware builds.
• Manage automated build processes, artifact storage, and release deployment to test and production environments.
• Own regression testing of CANbus interfaces, embedded drivers, and ADAS firmware features.
• System and Vehicle-Level Testing
• Execute validation plans across multiple makes and models to ensure compatibility with vehicle networks, ECUs, and sensors.
• Identify, log, and resolve system-level issues that span hardware, firmware, and vehicle integration.
• Design and validate production flashing processes to guarantee reliability at scale.
• OTA and Lifecycle Quality
• Test OTA update flows end-to-end for robustness, safety, and recoverability.
• Monitor and validate field updates across the installed base of devices.
• Test Automation and Infrastructure
• Build simulators, test harnesses, and frameworks for repeatable hardware and firmware testing.
• Develop automated test suites covering both hardware and embedded software functionality.
• Establish metrics and KPIs for system quality and reliability.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in embedded systems, hardware integration, or firmware engineering.
• Strong hands-on experience with board bring-up, debugging, and firmware validation.
• Proficiency with CANbus tools (CANalyzer, SavvyCAN, SocketCAN) and in-vehicle network testing.
• Ability to read schematics, debug hardware/firmware issues, and work at the board/system level.
• Experience with embedded/OS development or BSPs.
• Familiarity with flashing tools, bootloaders, and release management workflows (Git, Git LFS).
• Knowledge of containerization (Docker) for consistent embedded test environments.
• Automotive industry experience (OEM, Tier-1, retrofit, or ADAS systems).

Nice to Have

• Exposure to camera, radar, or sensor validation workflows.
• Experience with HIL systems, vehicle simulators, or custom test rigs.
• Reverse engineering and low-level debugging experience.
• Familiarity with automotive safety standards (ISO 26262, ASPICE).
• Background in networking, graphics, or ML applications on embedded platforms.

Why Join Us

The only reason to join a startup is to take on problems you would never get to solve anywhere else. At Saferide we are solving one of the hardest and most meaningful challenges in the world: ending road deaths. We have built the first true vision-based solution that can prevent the crashes that kill more than a million people globally each year, and the product you will help bring into production is designed to eliminate 80 to 90 percent of road deaths. This is your chance to join a small team at the exact moment when our product goes from prototype to reality, and to directly build the systems that scale Saferide from 2,000 units to 100,000 units.

Our Team

Saferide is led by proven operators and engineers. Our CEO previously scaled his first consumer electronics company to over $100M in revenue, releasing dozens of iconic products loved by millions. Our CTO created 5G at Intel after more than a decade as a staff engineer at Qualcomm. The rest of our engineering team brings deep expertise in vision systems, ADAS, and hardware, giving you world-class peers to collaborate with as you build the future of vehicle safety.

Compensation and Benefits

• Base salary: $110,000 – $145,000, depending on experience and fit.
• Meaningful equity grant in a venture-backed company scaling from prototype to mass production.
• Full health, dental, and vision coverage.
• On-site role at our San Diego office with a collaborative, mission-driven team.