Senior firmware ontwerper

Introduction At VAEngineering, we design and develop high-tech electronic devices from concept to production. Our work spans the full product lifecycle, from system architecture and hardware design to low-level firmware development, testing, validation, and manufacturing support. We take pride in building robust, scalable, and production-ready electronic solutions across a wide range of industries. The ideal candidate is a proactive and collaborative engineer who combines creativity with strong technical problem-solving skills. You are comfortable working close to the hardware, understanding how electronics and firmware interact, and translating system requirements into reliable embedded software. You take ownership of your work, communicate effectively with hardware and software engineers, and are equally comfortable working independently or as part of a team. Role Overview We are looking for a skilled Firmware Engineer to design, develop, and maintain low-level embedded software for a range of microcontroller-based platforms, including STM32, ESP32, and Nordic nRF systems. You will work close to the hardware on device drivers, peripheral interfaces, communication protocols, board bring-up, debugging, and RTOS-based applications. The role is strongly focused on reliable and maintainable firmware for real-world electronic products.

Key Responsibilities
• Develop and maintain embedded firmware for microcontroller-based systems such as STM32, ESP32, Nordic nRF, and similar MCUs
• Design and implement low-level drivers and hardware abstraction layers
• Develop interfaces for peripherals and communication protocols such as SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, GPIO, ADC, PWM, and timers
• Develop firmware using RTOS-based systems, such as FreeRTOS and Zephyr
• Integrate and debug sensors, actuators, communication modules, and other electronic peripherals
• Perform board bring-up and support hardware validation
• Debug firmware and hardware interactions using JTAG/SWD, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and other lab equipment
• Optimize firmware for performance, memory usage, reliability, startup behaviour, and power consumption
• Implement robust error handling, diagnostics, watchdogs, and fault-recovery mechanisms
• Collaborate closely with hardware engineers during schematic development, prototyping, testing, and debugging
• Participate in code reviews and technical design reviews
• Write clean, maintainable, testable, and well-documented C/C++ code Required Qualifications
• Strong experience with embedded C/C++
• Hands-on development experience with at least one MCU family, such as STM32, ESP32, Nordic nRF, or equivalent platforms.
• Strong understanding of microcontroller peripherals and hardware interaction
• Experience developing or integrating low-level device drivers
• Good understanding of interrupts, timers, ADCs, GPIO, PWM, and communication peripherals
• Experience with communication protocols such as UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, ... .
• Good understanding of RTOS concepts, including tasks/threads, scheduling, synchronization, queues, interrupts, and timing
• Experience with FreeRTOS, Zephyr, or another embedded RTOS
• Practical debugging experience
• Comfortable reading schematics, datasheets, and reference manuals
• Structured approach to debugging hardware/firmware integration issues