Farmer Charlie
Senior Embedded Software Engineer (fractional/contractor)
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Company Description
Farmer Charlie is focused on developing electronics to support efficient farming and plant growing. With our sister company, focused on consumer electronics, we are about to launch our first product next month!
Role Description
We're looking for a Senior Embedded Software Engineer to join us on a fractional basis, supporting the firmware for our connected consumer electronics products. This is a hands-on technical role for someone who has taken embedded products from prototype through to mass production and wants flexible, part-time involvement — whether alongside a full-time role, other consulting work, or their own venture.
You'll work closely with our hardware, backend, and manufacturing teams to keep our firmware reliable, maintainable, and ready to ship at scale.
What You'll Do
- Design, develop, and maintain firmware for our connected devices, primarily on ESP32 and Nordic nRF-series platforms
- Implement new features and optimize existing firmware for performance, power consumption, and reliability
- Debug and resolve field issues, including intermittent and hardware-adjacent bugs
- Contribute to architectural decisions for embedded platforms, including protocol selection, OTA update strategy, and power management design
- Collaborate with hardware engineers on board bring-up, schematic review, and firmware/hardware integration
- Work with manufacturing engineers to support production test firmware, factory calibration routines, and end-of-line testing
- Coordinate with backend/app teams on BLE/Wi-Fi provisioning, device-to-cloud communication, and secure connectivity
- Participate in code reviews, maintain clear technical documentation, and ensure firmware meets product and regulatory requirements (CE/FCC as applicable)
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What We're Looking For
- 5+ years of embedded software experience, with demonstrable seniority (architecture ownership, mentoring, or technical leadership)
- Strong hands-on experience with the relevant frameworks
- Proven experience shipping consumer electronics products to mass production — not just prototypes or proof-of-concepts
- Solid understanding of BLE and Wi-Fi, including provisioning flows and secure pairing
- Experience with low-power design: sleep states, battery management, power profiling
- Experience with OTA firmware update systems in production
- Familiarity with production/manufacturing test firmware and supporting DFM (design for manufacture) processes
- Comfortable working in C/C++ in embedded RTOS environments (FreeRTOS or similar)
- Strong communication skills — able to work effectively in a part-time, async-friendly capacity with minimal ramp-up time
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How to apply
Please share a CV or portfolio highlighting shipped consumer hardware products you've contributed firmware to, along with details of your ESP32/Nordic experience and availability.
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