Firmware Engineer

About Fellow

At Fellow, we’re on a mission to help people brew ridiculously good coffee at home. But we’re more than just beautifully designed kettles and grinders—we’re a brand built on innovation, community, and culture. We believe great coffee isn’t just about the final cup; it’s about the experience, the ritual, and the people who make it all happen.

We’re looking for a Firmware Engineer in China to design, develop, and maintain robust factory firmware, driver, and UI firmware for our IoT platform.

We are a small, agile team passionate about delivering high-quality experiences across on-device firmware, backend systems, and mobile apps. These experiences enable our customers to interact with Fellow’s connected products.

This role is based in Shenzhen or Guangzhou, China and is required to support Firmware development as well as onsite factory bring-up and test activity in Guangdong areas and other locations required by the Company.

Who You Are

You will be responsible for the development, maintenance, and optimization of our Firmware code base and toolchain. Your role will be critical in ensuring seamless integration of the factory manufacturing and firmware release schedule.

What You’ll Do

• Factory FW development: The main responsibility will be working with the factory to resolve all manufacturing issues.

• Optimize our code base for manufacturing flow

• Define and own factory modes for testing at manufacturing time

• Help collect manufacturing data and visualize it.

• Analyze issues at the factory and change Firmware to address them.

• Help the factory characterize subsystems and components.

• Debug, troubleshoot and characterize products and components.

• Driver developement:

• Work with the Firmware and Hardware team to develop drivers for sensors and mechanical components.

• Review factory environments and ensure drivers are robust during manufacturing.

• Design and implement efficient data flow, error handling, and real-time responsiveness in embedded environments.

• Optimize firmware for power efficiency, performance, and memory constraints in resource-limited embedded systems.

• Analytics:

• Own data collection at the factory.

• Work with a backend engineer to create a dashboard to visualize factory build quality.

• Collaboration: Work closely with the Firmware development, China manufacturing, and testing team, and Hardware teams to ensure that the entire development, support and release process is smooth and efficient.

• Identify potential risks in factory manufacture and create strategies to mitigate them, ensuring the safety and efficacy of our appliances.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in firmware engineering, with experience in real-time operating systems (RTOS), C/C++, and python.

• Home appliance/consumer electronics industry experience is preferred.

• Experience with driver implementation and optimization on embedded systems running FreeRTOS. Including but not limited to I2C, UART, SPI, ADC/DAC and etc.

• Experience with STM32. Familiarity with control path design in firmware, such as state machines, interrupt handling, and synchronization.

• Able to debug and troubleshoot firmware issues using tools like oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and JTAG debuggers.

• Power user of github and contributing to PR, code review and embedded toolchain.

• Strong understanding of hardware interfaces, schematics, and datasheets.

• Proactive, and possess the ability to complete the entire project independently.

• Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to work in a collaborative, agile environment.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with ESP32 and UI elements.

• Experience with system architecture, contributing to requirements gathering, and integration testing.

• Familiarity with simulation tools (e.g., QEMU) and hardware emulation for rapid prototyping.

• Knowledge of wireless protocols (e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi) and security practices.

• Exposure to Agile/Scrum methodologies and tools like Jira or Confluence.

• Familiar with PID control; BT/WiFi-mobile phone communication is an added advantage.

Why You’ll Love This Role

• A creative, fast-moving environment where ideas turn into action.

• Competitive compensation including employee equity plan

• Generous paid time off plan

• 401k with company contribution after 6 months of employment

• Medical/dental/vision insurance

• Better Yourself Wellness credit & Better Your Community donation matching

• Monthly Fitness Stipend

• Summer Fridays

• Paid Parental Leave

• Generous discount on Fellow products

• Best coffee anywhere

Salary Range: 40K- 45K RMB monthly

Our highest goal at Fellow is creating a safe, inclusive, and rewarding environment where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and thrive. We are committed to building diverse teams and strongly encourage people from underrepresented groups, including but not limited to women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans to apply.

Fellow is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.