Main Objectives
- Lead the development and support of all firmware in the Electrical Engineering group, becoming the group's firmware owner within approximately six months.
- Act as the technical bridge between sales, customers, and engineering: provide pre and post sales support, and train customers to interface with our equipment.
- Implement firmware changes on legacy products still in production, including analysis of older designs where documentation is limited.
- Support the development of new electronic boards, from pin definition through firmware delivery.
Essential Functions/Major Responsibilities:
- Develop bare metal C/C++ firmware for STM32H7 microcontrollers, from pin assignment and board bring up with hardware engineers through peripheral drivers and debugging (JTAG, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.)
- Develop and improve our advanced PC based C++ graphical user interface, which supports multiple communication interfaces (Ethernet, CAN, serial), command and scripting operation, and real time graphing.
- Create and maintain documentation: initial design requirements, firmware architecture and design documents, interface specifications (command sets and protocols), test plans and results, release notes, and customer interface guides.
- Write clean, well structured, well commented code, managed in Git with full traceability of changes to requirements and releases.
Essential Quality Expectations
- Strong analytical skills and sound engineering judgment under ambiguity.
- Ability to quickly learn and take ownership of existing code bases, including those with limited documentation.
- Self directed, able to work as the group's sole firmware engineer and set priorities across multiple projects.
- Clear communication with customers and internal teams, including teaching customer engineers to use our interfaces.
- Commitment to technical excellence, documentation, and knowledge transfer.
- Customer oriented thinking and ability to represent the company in technical discussions
Qualifications & Requirements:
- Education/Training: Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or a related field (MS desired).
- Experience: Minimum of 8 years of experience in firmware development and application support for complex electromechanical systems / control systems.
- Skills/Technical Requirements:
- Strong proficiency in C and C++, including Windows application development.
- Experience with bare metal firmware on STM32 or similar ARM Cortex M microcontrollers, understanding of microcontroller architecture and digital circuit design, experience bringing up boards from schematics
- Experience with communication protocols such as UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, and Ethernet. EtherCAT is a plus.
- Experience in bootloader development and Git.
- FPGA experience is a plus.
- Experience with motion control and/or control systems. Thermal systems experience is a plus.
- Willingness to travel as required for projects and customer support.
- Excellent English communication skills. German and/or French is a plus.
Compensation: The estimated base pay range for this position is $115,000 to $135,000 per year, depending on qualifications, experience, education, and other job-related factors. This range represents Cohu’s good faith estimate of what it reasonably expects to pay for this role upon hire. This role may also be eligible for other compensation programs as determined by company policy.
Featured benefits
- Medical, dental & vision insurance
- 401(k) with company matching contributions
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan
- Tuition assistance
- Disability & life insurance
- Profit Sharing
Skills Required
- Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or a related field
- Minimum of 8 years of experience in firmware development and application support for complex electromechanical or control systems
- Strong proficiency in C and C++, including Windows application development
- Experience developing bare-metal firmware on STM32 or similar ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers
- Understanding of microcontroller architecture and digital circuit design
- Experience bringing up boards from schematics
- Experience with UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, and Ethernet communication protocols
- Experience in bootloader development and Git
- Willingness to travel as required for projects and customer support
- Excellent English communication skills
- Master’s degree
- EtherCAT experience
- FPGA experience
- Motion control or control systems experience
- Thermal systems experience
- German and/or French language skills
Cohu, Inc. Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Cohu, Inc. and has not been reviewed or approved by Cohu, Inc..
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Retirement Support — A company-sponsored 401(k) with employer matching contributions is described in filings, supporting long-term savings. Company materials also highlight retirement programs as part of a comprehensive package.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — An employee stock purchase plan with a discounted lookback feature is outlined, expanding access to ownership. This structure can enhance total rewards value beyond base pay.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Company materials outline robust paid time off programs and parental leave for all new parents. Time-off programs are presented as part of a comprehensive, globally relevant benefits suite.
Cohu, Inc. Insights
What We Do
Cohu is a leading supplier of semiconductor test and inspection & metrology handlers, micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) test modules, test contactors, thermal sub-systems and semiconductor automated test equipment used by global semiconductor and electronics manufacturers and semiconductor test subcontractors. Our product portfolio is focused on increasing yield, reducing cost of test, and accelerating time-to-market. Cohu is a publicly traded (NASDAQ: COHU) global company with headquarters in Poway, CA. We have a global footprint with ~3,000 employees. We are the leading supplier of Semiconductor Test and Inspection & Metrology Handlers and Test Contactors. We have market leadership in RF Power Amplifier/Front-End Module Testing.
