About 1X

We’re building humanoid robots that work in home - doing the chores, handling the tasks, and giving people their time back. Simple, but it’s not.

To do this right, we have to solve robotics, AI, manufacturing - at the same time, at scale, in a form factor that has to be safe enough to live with your family. If you’re inspired by this, you’ll thrive here. We’ve been at this since 2014 and we’re at the point where the hard problems are behind us and the hard work is in front of us.

NEO is our flagship - a home robot designed to move, learn, and operate in the real world alongside real people. We’re not demoing it - we’re shipping it. We’re excited to meet you, if this excites you.

If you’ve spent your career working on problems that matter and want to see them actually reach the world - this is that moment. We’re scaling, we’re hiring with intention, and we need people who want to build something that will genuinely change how humans spend their time - safely creating abundance for all.

About the Team

The Firmware team owns the embedded software layer that powers every hardware subsystem of our humanoid robot from distributed communication bus architecture and power management to actuator and motor drive control. We sit at the intersection of hardware and software, and our work is directly on the critical path to every product milestone: without reliable firmware, the robot cannot move, charge, or operate safely. If you want to build the foundational software for a new category of physical AI, this is where that work happens.

Your Charter

Own the firmware layer across one or more of the robot’s core hardware subsystems—ensuring embedded software that is robust, safe, and maintainable across prototype and production platforms. As one of the first companies building general-purpose humanoid robots at scale, firmware quality is non-negotiable: it determines whether the robot operates safely in uncontrolled environments, whether hardware brings up on schedule, and whether the team can move fast as the system grows to 20+ distributed embedded nodes.

Key Outcomes

Develop and maintain charger firmware controlling AC-DC power conversion stages,

including power factor correction and isolated DC-DC conversion topologies

Implement charge profile management for multi-series lithium-ion packs: constant-

current, constant-voltage, and taper phases with cell-chemistry-appropriate voltage and

current limits

Architect the charger-to-BMS communication interface over CAN or similar embedded

bus, coordinating charge current requests, pack voltage feedback, temperature limits,

and fault signaling between the two subsystems

Responsible for the testing, validation, and verification of initial firmware releases to

ensure functionality, reliability, and performance requirements are met

Implement power converter control loops in firmware: voltage regulation, current

regulation, and soft-start sequencing with stability under varying line and load conditions

Develop fault detection and protection firmware: input overvoltage/undervoltage, output

overcurrent, overtemperature, ground fault, and loss-of-communication with the BMS,

each with defined safe-state transitions

Key Competencies

Deep embedded instincts writing firmware that is correct under real hardware conditions: interrupt timing, DMA conflicts, communication protocol edge cases, and hardware fault behavior

First-principles problem solver diagnosing novel failures at the firmware-hardware boundary using lab tools and reasoning from fundamentals, not just vendor documentation or established patterns

Safety-aware by default understanding what “fail safe” means in a physical system and treats protection logic, fault detection, and safe-state transitions as first-class firmware concerns

Effective cross-functional partner translating firmware constraints and failure modes clearly to hardware architects, electrical engineers, and systems engineers; supports bring-up without waiting to be directed

Minimum Requirements

5+ years of embedded firmware development in C/C++ on real hardware, with direct experience managing interrupts, DMA, and timing-critical execution (7+ years for senior/staff-level positions)