Firmware Engineer (Embedded C)

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Firmware Engineer (Embedded C)

Join our team at the Alicat Scientific headquarters in Tucson, Arizona!

About Alicat Scientific

At Alicat, engineers design hardware and firmware that are built, tested, and manufactured under the same roof, giving you direct ownership and immediate impact on real products.

We specialize in high-performance instrumentation for measuring and controlling flow and pressure. Our products support aerospace, bioprocessing, energy, environmental science, and advanced research, where precision, stability, and reliability are essential.

Our engineering environment is tightly integrated and highly collaborative. We avoid bureaucracy, make decisions quickly, and value engineers who take ownership and enjoy solving real technical problems.

All our instruments are built in-house at our Tucson, Arizona facility. This vertical integration gives engineers full visibility from concept through production, enabling rapid iteration and strong cross-functional collaboration.

Alicat's mission is to accelerate the evolution of science and technology by giving researchers and innovators the tools to explore, build, and solve complex challenges. We are part of Halma plc, a global FTSE 100 group focused on growing a safer, cleaner, healthier future. Through Halma, we benefit from long-term stability and investment while maintaining the agility and culture of a mid-sized engineering team.

If you want to work at the intersection of physics, electronics, and embedded systems and help build instrumentation that enables the next generation of technological breakthroughs, Alicat is an exceptional place to do it.

Job summary

As a Firmware Engineer at Alicat Scientific, you will design, implement, and maintain embedded firmware that powers our high-precision flow and pressure instrumentation systems. You will write robust, deterministic firmware that directly controls sensors, valves, communication interfaces, and calibration systems operating in demanding real-world environments.

You will work at the boundary between electronics and physics, implementing real-time control algorithms, signal processing routines, and communication protocols that must perform with stability and accuracy across wide dynamic ranges. Your firmware will interact closely with precision analog circuitry, digital control systems, and production calibration processes.

Collaboration is central to this role. You will work closely with Electrical, Mechanical, Software, and Test Engineering to ensure seamless system integration from early hardware bring-up through validation, production release, and long-term sustainment.

This is a deeply hands-on role focused on writing production code. You will own meaningful firmware deliverables under the guidance of senior engineers, contribute to architecture discussions, participate in code reviews, and grow your embedded systems expertise within a fast-iteration, vertically integrated engineering environment.

Based full-time at our Tucson, Arizona facility, you will have full visibility into the product lifecycle and contribute to firmware outcomes from development through manufacturing release and field support of new products.

Technical functions

• Implement embedded firmware in C for advanced flow and pressure control instruments.
• Contribute to modular, scalable firmware architectures supporting long product lifecycles.
• Develop real-time control systems including PID loops, filtering algorithms, and calibration routines.
• Implement hardware abstraction layers and drivers for ADCs, DACs, timers, PWM, DMA, EEPROM/Flash, and sensor interfaces.
• Integrate communication interfaces including UART, SPI, I²C, USB, RS232/RS485, CAN, and industrial protocols such as Modbus, EtherNet/IP, IO-Link, and related standards.
• Contribute to bootloaders, firmware update strategies, and diagnostic systems.
• Debug firmware at the register and hardware level using JTAG/SWD, oscilloscopes, and logic analyzers.
• Collaborate with Electrical Engineering during hardware bring-up and root cause analysis.
• Improve code reliability and maintainability through structured reviews, static analysis, and test strategies.
• Contribute to CI/CD build processes and version control workflows.
• Support manufacturing test integration and field diagnostics through well-structured firmware hooks and logging systems.
• Help refactor and modernize legacy codebases to improve modularity, clarity, and long-term sustainability.

Collaboration and growth

• Work within a small firmware team, contributing hands-on to product development across disciplines.
• Participate in firmware architecture discussions and apply established coding standards and development best practices.
• Follow defined firmware development processes, including code review standards, branching strategies, release workflows, and documentation expectations.
• Contribute to firmware-related SOPs that support design controls, validation, and long-term maintainability.
• Support continuous improvement in tooling, build systems, debugging workflows, and cross-functional integration practices.
• Participate in code reviews to ensure quality, maintainability, and alignment with system architecture.
• Coordinate firmware tasks in collaboration with cross-functional engineering teams.
• Support root cause analysis efforts during system integration and validation phases.
• Contribute to a culture of ownership, accountability, execution discipline, and technical excellence.

Qualifications - Education and experience

• BS in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field required.
• 3-5 years of embedded firmware development experience in C.
• Strong proficiency in Embedded C within resource-constrained microcontroller environments.
• Working understanding of real-time systems, interrupt-driven design, memory management, and deterministic timing.
• Experience with RTOS-based or well-structured bare-metal firmware architectures.
• Experience with hardware bring-up and debugging at the electrical interface level.
• Familiarity with communication protocols such as SPI, I2C, UART, USB, CAN, and RS-485.
• Experience implementing control algorithms, signal processing, or precision measurement systems preferred.
• Proficiency with embedded debugging tools, cross-compilers, and version control systems (Git).
• Exposure to static analysis tools and firmware code quality methodologies is a plus.
• Good written and verbal communication skills, including technical documentation and cross-functional collaboration.
• Strong analytical mindset, disciplined debugging skills, and high attention to detail.

Position: Firmware Engineer (Embedded C) Location: In person only - Tucson, Arizona 85743 Report to: Engineering Manager Salary: $100,000 - $120,000

About Alicat Scientific

Alicat Scientific, Inc. has been manufacturing and servicing high‐quality mass flow and pressure devices since 1991, growing every year for the past 25 years. Each instrument is custom‐made for the end user. Our product is applicable in unlimited markets. From healthcare to aerospace, we design, test, build and apply our products to almost every niche. We believe our employees are the drivers of our growth and the reason we keep improving year after year. Our employees enjoy:

• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• Life and disability insurance plans
• 401k with up to 5% match and vesting schedule
• Tuition reimbursement
• Earned PTO
• Paid holidays
• Parental leave