Senior Platform Firmware Engineer Verified today
About Cowboy Space
Cowboy Space is building infrastructure to power the orbital economy. Our satellites in Low Earth Orbit collect sunlight and enable new capabilities: powering on-orbit compute, transmitting energy via infrared lasers, and delivering secure, high-bandwidth optical data. Founded in 2024 by Baiju Bhatt (co-founder of Robinhood), we are backed by leading investors and staffed by engineers from top aerospace and defense organizations.
The Role
You will work at the boundary between hardware and software, across platform firmware, FPGA logic, board bring-up, system management, and autonomous recovery systems to ensure reliable operation from first power-on through orbital deployment.
Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain platform firmware and board management infrastructure for advanced compute systems.
- Own system bring-up and low-level boot sequencing for custom hardware platforms.
- Design and implement FPGA/CPLD logic for power sequencing, reset orchestration, watchdog functionality, and telemetry.
- Develop and customize BMC firmware and management stacks using OpenBMC and related technologies.
- Implement and maintain platform management interfaces including Redfish and/or IPMI.
- Debug complex hardware/firmware interactions across CPUs, GPUs, PCIe fabrics, and networking devices.
- Collaborate closely with hardware, validation, thermal, and systems teams during bring-up and deployment.
- Develop fault recovery and autonomous reboot for remote orbital systems.
- Support secure boot, firmware update, and system attestation architectures.
Required Qualifications
- Hands-on experience in embedded systems, platform firmware, BMC development, or hardware bring-up engineering.
- Strong proficiency in C/C++ and Python.
- Deep understanding of platform initialization and boot architectures.
- Strong familiarity with hardware communication interfaces including I2C, SPI, UART, GPIO, and JTAG.
- Experience debugging hardware/software interactions at board and system level.
- Familiarity with FPGA or CPLD development workflows using Xilinx or Altera platforms.
- Strong systems-level debugging and problem-solving skills.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with server platforms, AI infrastructure, or high-performance compute systems.
- Familiarity with PCIe initialization and accelerator bring-up.
- Experience with remote management and fleet-scale telemetry systems.
- Knowledge of secure boot, attestation, and firmware security architectures.
- Familiarity with radiation-tolerant or fault-resilient system design.
Compensation and Benefits
Salary: $170,000 to $235,000 annually, based on experience and qualifications.
- Equity in Cowboy Space Corp.
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- 401(k) retirement savings plan
- Paid time off and 10 paid holidays per calendar year
- Paid parental leave
- Relocation assistance if applicable
- Daily lunch in office and fully stocked kitchen
ITAR Requirements
To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, applicants must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.