Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Nexa, part of Spade, builds smart monitoring devices for cows that monitor animal health and behavior on farms. The Lead Embedded Systems Engineer will own embedded electronics and firmware development for microchip and ear tag platforms through design, prototyping, verification, pilot production, and manufacturing handoff. The role also involves hardware and firmware integration, sensor and power optimization, manufacturing support, and field testing.
Responsibilities
- Own embedded electronics and firmware systems from concept through prototyping, verification, pilot production, and manufacturing handoff
- Lead schematic capture, component selection, PCB layout, and DFM in Altium or equivalent, including mixed-signal designs combining low-power communication (ex: sub-GHz radio), low-frequency inductive RF, sensors, and power management
- Rapidly design, build, assemble, rework, and bring up functional hardware prototypes
- Develop and maintain production C/C++ firmware using Zephyr or a similar RTOS, including board bring-up, peripheral and sensor drivers, power management, wireless communication, device state management, and hardware debugging
- Integrate environmental, physiological, and motion sensors, and develop device-level verification plans covering signal quality, calibration, noise, drift, wireless communication, power consumption, mechanical integration, and environmental reliability
- Develop power budgets and optimize current consumption to meet battery-life and real-world operating requirements
- Collaborate closely with mechanical engineering, software, manufacturing, veterinary, and farm-facing teams on enclosure constraints, PCB integration, assembly, sealing, manufacturability, field testing, and overall device performance
- Work directly with manufacturing partners to release fabrication packages, respond to DFM questions, support pilot builds, troubleshoot production issues, and develop production test fixtures and automated flash/test procedures
- Occasionally travel to farms to meet users and observe field testing and deployment
Skills
- 3+ years of professional experience building and shipping embedded systems
- Strong PCB design fluency in Altium, KiCad, or equivalent, from schematic capture through layout and manufacturing release
- Deep familiarity with embedded ecosystems such as STM32, Nordic, or similar, and the ability to quickly learn new MCU families
- RF design experience, including antenna placement, impedance matching, ground-plane design, interference management, and operation in tight form factors
- Experience with LoRa/LoRaWAN (or similar low-power sub-GHz wireless systems) and wireless/RF methods including antenna design and decision-making
- Hands-on lab skills, including soldering, rework, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, multimeters, current probes, and benchtop power supplies
- Strong embedded firmware experience in C/C++, including board bring-up, peripheral drivers, RTOS-based development, power management, wireless communication, and production firmware
- Experience integrating sensors and addressing calibration, signal quality, noise, drift, and environmental effects
- Experience taking designs through prototyping, verification, DFM, pilot production, and manufacturing handoff
- Ability to work across electrical, firmware, and mechanical interfaces to support complete device integration
- Basic mechanical design skills, including comfort working in CAD and collaborating on enclosure fit and manufacturability
- Drive to leverage AI tools to speed up productivity and engineering workflows
- Comfort with ambiguity, fast iteration, and startup pace
- Experience designing wearable, implantable, physiological-monitoring, veterinary, or other biologically interfacing devices
- Experience designing for harsh, rugged, or outdoor environments, including agricultural, automotive, industrial, or defense applications
- Production test engineering experience
- A personal home lab or hobby projects that show genuine interest in electronics outside of work
- Experience with different primary battery chemistries
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