Firmware Engineer (Connectivity)

Location: Bengaluru – Work from Office (5 days a week)

Start Date: Immediate

About Zeno

An unprecedented energy transition has begun. To meet 2040 net zero goals, over 2 billion electric two-wheelers (motorcycles) must be sold and $11 trillion in fuel consumption replaced. Zeno is building a tech platform to electrify this two-wheeler market, currently responsible for more than 4% of the world’s GHG emissions. Our mission is to accelerate the energy transition and democratize the benefits across Africa, India, and Latin America. With a focus on East Africa as a starting point, Zeno is building a new energy ecosystem with ground-up development of a fundamentally better electric motorcycle and associated battery swap network to drive a better experience for our customers.

The Role

As a Firmware Engineer – Connectivity, you will be part of a cross-functional engineering team building reliable, high-performance connectivity products for the Electric Vehicle and Charging ecosystem. You’ll work closely with hardware, systems, cloud, and validation teams to integrate and maintain connectivity solutions using cellular, GNSS, and network communication technologies. This is a hands-on role with strong learning opportunities in embedded systems, wireless communication, networking protocols, and embedded security.

What You’ll Do:

• Design, develop, integrate, and maintain embedded firmware for connected devices and control units
• Integrate and configure LTE/cellular and GNSS modules, including module initialization, configuration, firmware updates, and communication interfaces
• Develop and debug low-level drivers and interfaces for microcontrollers and communication peripherals such as UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, and Ethernet
• Implement and maintain communication stacks and application-level protocols including HTTP/HTTPS, TCP/IP, UDP, MQTT, and TLS
• Develop firmware features for reliable network connectivity, connection management, data transmission, retries, timeouts, and fault recovery
• Implement GNSS functionality including NMEA data handling, position acquisition, satellite status, and location-related diagnostics
• Work with hardware and systems teams during board bring-up, connectivity module integration, and prototype development
• Analyze modem/network logs and field data to diagnose issues related to cellular registration, signal quality, PDP/packet-data connectivity, TCP/UDP sessions, MQTT connections, and data transfers
• Integrate and debug Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and other wireless communication technologies, including device discovery, pairing, GATT/GAP services, data exchange, and connectivity management.
• Implement and integrate encryption and security mechanisms such as TLS/SSL, certificate management, secure key storage, and cryptographic algorithms
• Contribute to hardware security features including secure boot, hardware-backed key storage, cryptographic accelerators, secure firmware updates, and device identity
• Perform unit testing, integration testing, and on-target debugging using JTAG/SWD, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and protocol/network analysis tools
• Support firmware update mechanisms such as secure bootloaders, OTA/FOTA updates, and firmware integrity verification
• Use version control systems such as Git and follow collaborative software development, code review, and documentation practices
• Analyze and resolve firmware issues across development, validation, and field environments
• Collaborate with hardware, cloud, systems, security, and validation teams to deliver robust connected products
• Contribute to product security, connectivity validation, compliance, and continuous improvement of firmware development practices

What you Bring:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics, or a related field
• 3–5 years of experience in embedded firmware development
• Strong proficiency in C/C++ for embedded systems
• Hands-on experience with microcontrollers and real-time/bare-metal embedded firmware development
• Hands-on experience integrating LTE/cellular and GNSS modules into embedded products
• Experience working with UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, and Ethernet interfaces
• Good understanding of TCP/IP networking and hands-on experience with HTTP/HTTPS, TCP, UDP, and MQTT
• Familiarity with cellular concepts such as network registration, APN/PDP context, signal strength, roaming, and connection recovery
• Experience handling GNSS/NMEA data and integrating location functionality into embedded applications
• Hands-on experience with BLE and other wireless communication protocols, with an understanding of wireless connectivity, pairing, device discovery, and data communication.
• Understanding of TLS/SSL, encryption, certificates, public/private key cryptography, and secure communications
• Familiarity with hardware security concepts, including secure boot, secure key storage, hardware crypto accelerators, device identity, and secure firmware updates
• Previous experience with Zephyr RTOS is preferred
• Experience using debugging and validation tools such as JTAG, SWD, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, serial terminals, and network/protocol analyzers
• Exposure to Git and collaborative embedded software development workflows
• Understanding of embedded software testing, debugging, logging, and documentation best practices
• Ability to troubleshoot complex issues spanning firmware, hardware, cellular networks, and cloud connectivity
• Ability to work effectively in cross-functional teams and communicate technical concepts clearly