Job Title: Staff Embedded Firmware Engineer - Power Electronics
Job Description
Trystar’s team members are our most important asset. We are looking for a Staff Embedded Firmware Engineer – Power Electronics – to write, integrate, and verify the embedded real-time firmware of our power conversion products, including DC/DC converters, three-phase grid-tied inverters, and energy storage systems, from architecture through validation, certification, and production release. You will turn the control strategies that our controls engineers define and simulate into production-quality code on microcontroller- and FPGA-based control boards, and you will own the drivers, communications, memory, diagnostics, and update functions around that code. You will lead the firmware workstream of new product programs as a senior individual contributor, set the technical direction of the firmware code base, and mentor the engineers who build it with you.
Location Merrimack, NH, or Pointe-Claire, QC, is preferred. Travel within North America up to 20%.
In this role you will:
- Develop, implement, test, and maintain embedded real-time firmware in C and C++ for power conversion systems, including DC/DC converters, three-phase grid-tied inverters, and energy storage systems.
- Implement in real-time code the control algorithms that controls engineers define and simulate, including current, voltage, and power regulation, pulse-width modulation, Clarke and Park transformations, phase-locked loops, protection, and grid-support functions, within sampling, timing, and computational-delay budgets.
- Integrate and verify code generated from MATLAB and Simulink models, and keep firmware behavior traceable to the control specification.
- Design the real-time software architecture of control boards, including task scheduling, interrupt service routines, bootloaders, board-support packages, and hardware abstraction layers.
- Develop low-level peripheral drivers and interface software for ADC, PWM, timers, GPIO, I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, and other microcontroller peripherals.
- Design and develop embedded communication software, including TCP/IP stack integration, Ethernet-based communication, CAN, Modbus, and protocol-level diagnostics for connected power electronics products.
- Implement and debug external memory interfaces, including EEPROM, Flash, MRAM, and SD card, for data logging, configuration storage, field firmware updates, and fault-record handling.
- Test and debug firmware in-system and on processor-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop platforms, using debuggers, emulators, oscilloscopes, and embedded instrumentation, and confirm with controls engineers that the code reproduces the simulated control performance.
- Support IEEE 1547 and UL 1741 grid-support inverter certification testing with firmware builds, parameter configuration, diagnostics, and defect resolution.
- Apply disciplined software practices, including version control, code reviews, static code analysis, automated unit testing, and release management.
- Write firmware requirements, software design specifications, and user documentation for embedded control software.
- Collaborate with controls, hardware, systems, tests, compliance, and manufacturing engineers on new system architectures, from concept through validation and commercial-scale manufacturing.
- Develop and manage detailed schedules for the firmware workstream of your projects.
- Mentor junior firmware and software engineers.
Qualifications
REQUIRED
- Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or a related technical field, with 10+ years of relevant industrial experience in embedded firmware for power conversion or other real-time control products.
- Expert proficiency in C, and working proficiency in C++, for real-time, microcontroller-based control systems.
- Demonstrated experience implementing power electronics control algorithms in production firmware, including regulators, pulse-width and space vector modulation, Clarke and Park transformations, and phase-locked loops, with attention to fixed-point scaling, sampling, timing, and computational delay.
- Working knowledge of power electronics control theory sufficient to read control specifications and MATLAB and Simulink models, and to diagnose differences between simulated and measured behavior.
- Extensive experience in digital design engineering for power and instrumentation systems.
- Experience with electrical hardware for power conversion and instrumentation, and the ability to read and understand mixed-signal electrical schematics.
- Experience in bootloaders, device drivers, interrupt service routines, real-time operating systems or bare-metal schedulers, and hardware abstraction layers for embedded control boards.
- Hands-on experience with embedded communication interfaces and protocols, including TCP/IP, Ethernet, I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, Modbus, or similar industrial protocols.
- Experience with external memory devices and data storage mechanisms, including Flash, EEPROM, FRAM, SD card, wear-leveling, memory partitioning, and field firmware update support.
- Strong background in microcontroller- and FPGA-based architectures.
- Proficiency with firmware debugging and verification tools, including JTAG debuggers, emulators, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and hardware-in-the-loop platforms.
- Demonstrated ability to mentor and develop junior engineers.
- Excellent documentation skills for firmware requirements, software design specifications, and user manuals.
PREFERRED
- Master’s degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or a related technical field.
- Experience with Texas Instruments C2000 or ARM microcontrollers.
- Proficiency in Verilog-based logic design.
- Experience integrating code generated automatically from MATLAB and Simulink, such as Embedded Coder output, and verifying it through model-, software-, processor-, and hardware-in-the-loop testing.
- Experience supporting IEEE 1547 and UL 1741 grid-support inverter certification testing with firmware.
- Experience creating reusable driver libraries, middleware, and communication stacks for microcontroller peripherals.
- Experience with secure boot, firmware update mechanisms, embedded diagnostics, device provisioning, or cybersecurity practices for connected embedded products.
- Experience with functional safety firmware practices, such as IEC 61508 or UL 1998, and coding standards such as MISRA C.
- NFPA 70E certification.
Skills
- Highly motivated, fast learner with exceptional attention to detail.
- Thrives in a team environment and builds strong working relationships across engineering disciplines.
- Works hand in hand with controls engineers, turning control specifications into code and test evidence.
- Clear written and verbal communication, including documentation of designs and decisions.
- Ability to plan and lead a firmware workstream against a detailed schedule.