Embedded Security Engineer

Base is America’s next-generation power company. We’re rebuilding the foundation of modern civilization–electricity–by deploying a vast network of distributed batteries that is transforming today’s fragile, centralized grid into a resilient and abundant system. We are engineers, operators, and creatives solving some of the most complex, interdisciplinary challenges of our time.

Base deploys hardware in the field, real devices controlling real power. As the first Embedded Security Engineer, you will be responsible for securing the software, firmware, and hardware that operate our distributed energy systems. This is a 0 → 1 role. You will define the security architecture for embedded controllers, build secure boot and firmware integrity systems, protect device communications, and ensure our hardware is resilient against tampering, spoofing, and adversarial behavior.

You will work closely with embedded engineers, hardware engineers, controls engineers, and backend teams to design systems that are secure by default and able to withstand real world attacks in a fast moving environment where your decisions directly influence our deployed systems.

What You’ll Do

• Design and implement security architecture for embedded devices and hardware systems used in Base’s distributed energy network

• Develop secure boot, firmware signing, update integrity, and hardware root of trust mechanisms

• Protect device identity, authentication, authorization, and key lifecycle management on physical hardware

• Harden firmware and embedded Linux environments against exploitation, tampering, and unauthorized modification

• Conduct threat modeling, penetration testing, and vulnerability assessments on device level hardware and communication protocols

• Analyze and secure industrial communication interfaces including CAN, Modbus, serial, Ethernet, and wireless interfaces

• Implement secure communication between devices and cloud or control plane services using mutual TLS, certificate rotation, and encrypted channels

• Work with hardware and manufacturing teams to define secure provisioning, device enrollment, and supply chain security processes

• Investigate device failures or anomalous behavior and lead root cause analysis for potential security related events

• Define and document best practices for embedded security, operational procedures, and long term systems hardening

What You'll Bring

• Strong experience in embedded systems, firmware engineering, or hardware security

• Deep understanding of secure boot, firmware signing, key storage, and hardware root of trust implementations

• Experience with embedded Linux, RTOS environments, or bare metal firmware

• Knowledge of cryptography fundamentals, secure communication protocols, and identity or authentication systems

• Hands on experience with debugging tools, lab hardware, oscilloscopes, and JTAG or SWD interfaces

• Familiarity with industrial or field device security, especially in IoT, robotics, energy systems, or other distributed physical systems

• Ability to analyze attack surfaces across hardware, firmware, and communication layers

• Strong ability to collaborate across hardware, embedded, backend, and operations teams

• Comfortable making foundational architectural decisions in a small, fast moving engineering team

• First Principles Thinking: Question assumptions. Principles > rules.

• Operate at Base Pace: Focus on what matters, act quickly, and learn by doing.

• Give & Get Feedback: Be direct, be humble, and maintain a growth mindset.

• Everyone’s an Owner: Follow through on commitments and own results.

• Strong Opinions, Loosely Held: Drive clarity and make calls with imperfect information.

• Committed to the Mission: Rebuilding the grid is a big challenge. We work hard because we care deeply about the impact we’re creating. We work in-person. It’s not a 9-to-5. We are all-in.

• Fun & Optimism Coexist with Grit: Collaboration and celebration coincide with the intensity of building real things.