Principal Firmware/Diagnostics Engineer

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation. 
 

Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

Job Description

F5 is seeking an accomplished Principal Firmware/Diagnostics Engineer to lead the development of reliable, secure, and serviceable firmware and diagnostics across the full product lifecycle, from hardware bring‑up and boot loaders through runtime services and field upgrades. As a key member of the Hardware Development Team, you will provide technical leadership and mentoring, drive roadmap execution and elevate engineering excellence, and partner cross‑functionally to deliver platform capabilities that delight customers and meet stringent security and compliance expectations (e.g., secure boot, code signing, measured boot). This role requires deep expertise in firmware/software design and the ability to influence architecture decisions, ensure design excellence, and foster innovation.

Key Responsibilities:

• Uphold F5’s Business Code of Ethics and promptly report violations of the Code or other company policies.

• Act as a technical authority, establishing standards for secure boot, code‑signing, anti‑rollback protections, measured boot, vulnerability remediation, and incident response.

• Lead firmware and diagnostics design for new products, including architecture definition, functional specifications, and requirements development. Work with cross-functional teams to align requirements and shepherd PRDs into executable plans.

• Assist in the planning of work across boot, board bring‑up, drivers, runtime services, manufacturing/test firmware, and in‑field update mechanisms.

• Define telemetry, detection, and recovery strategies for firmware integrity, and align to relevant standards (e.g., FIPS 140‑3, FedRAMP implications as applicable).

• Define automated build, test, and validation, ensuring repeatable releases and traceable artifacts across SKUs.

• Drive design for manufacturability, testability, and reliability across all phases of development. Partner with MFG and Global Services to define factory programming, golden images, and resilient upgrade strategies (A/B, recovery partitions).

• Research and evaluate emerging technologies to enhance existing products and guide new product directions.

• Oversee and mentor engineers, providing technical guidance and reviewing work to ensure quality and efficiency. Serve and guide other team members through challenges, assuring their growth and project success

• Conduct internal and external technical presentations and disseminate knowledge within the Hardware Development Team.

• Develop and maintain schedules for deliverables, ensuring timely and high-quality documentation and testing through holistic ownership over assigned product areas and projects. Provide status, risks, and decisions to leadership; translate technical details into business outcomes.

• Interface with suppliers and manufacturing partners for validation and issue resolution.

• Support sustaining engineering for legacy products and assist in manufacturing training for new designs.

• Participate in design reviews and contribute to continuous improvement of design processes and standards.

Qualifications:

Required:

• Understand and comply with F5 internal processes and requirements.

• BS in Computer Science or equivalent required; MS in Computer Science is desirable.

• 10+ years of experience in embedded/firmware engineering.

• Advanced troubleshooting skills at board and system levels.

• Extensive experience in the following:

• Arm/x86 platforms, embedded Linux, secure elements, and measured boot pipelines.

• C/C++, low‑level debugging, and board bring‑up (oscilloscope/logic analyzer/JTAG).

• AMI Aptio V UEFI BIOS, OpenBMC, AMI MegaRAC/SPX, IPMI and Redfish.

• Boot architecture (UEFI/BIOS, bootloaders), BMC, PFR, TPM, SPI/QSPI flash, IO peripherals, and runtime firmware.

• Buses/protocols (I2C/I3C, SPI, UART, DDR, PCIe, GPIO, PMIC), and memory/storage (NOR/NAND, DRAM, SSD).

• Security protocols and knowledge of multiple Platform Root of Trust devices and secure boot mechanisms.

• Source code version control tools such as Git and GitLab.

• CI/CD and Agile software development.

• Prior work with factory programming, golden image workflows, and recovery strategies (A/B, rollback protections).

• Exposure to cloud‑connected devices and policy/version orchestration across fleets.

• Familiarity with relevant industry standards and compliance requirements.

• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Preferred:

• Compliance and security standards (e.g., FIPS 140‑3, NIST SP 800-193).

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

Please note that F5 only contacts candidates through F5 email address (ending with @f5.com) or auto email notification from Workday (ending with f5.com or @myworkday.com).

Equal Employment Opportunity

It is the policy of F5 to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to unlawful considerations of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, sensory, physical, or mental disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, discipline, and termination.  F5 offers a variety of reasonable accommodations for candidates. Requesting an accommodation is completely voluntary. F5 will assess the need for accommodations in the application process separately from those that may be needed to perform the job. Request by contacting [email protected].