About This Role
Pickle is on the hunt for a dynamic and driven Senior Firmware Engineer to help us revolutionize the future of warehouse automation. This is a senior individual contributor role at the intersection of low-level embedded systems and high-level robotics software — the crucial link between Pickle's physical hardware peripherals and its intelligent, distributed software platform.
At this level, you won't just be executing on well-defined problems — you'll be shaping how we approach firmware architecture, setting engineering standards, and mentoring a growing team. Your contributions will directly impact the efficiency, safety, and reliability of Pickle's autonomous truck-unloading robots, which operate in real warehouses every day.
Responsibilities
You'll discover how to use new peripherals and extend the functionality of existing ones within our robotic system, often requiring complex configuration files or programming in a vendor's specialized language. You'll configure and program devices, including PLCs, motor controllers, and safety systems, and implement communication via Modbus, PROFIsafe, CAN, Ethernet, and similar protocols. Working closely with hardware and software teams, you'll design clean, well-documented APIs between peripherals and Pickle's object-oriented, distributed platform, and characterize the performance of peripheral interfaces to design and implement meaningful improvements.
You'll design and implement safety-critical features, including emergency stop mechanisms, collision-avoidance systems, and other safety-related functionality. To support this, you'll develop Python scripts, test harnesses, and debugging tools to verify the reliability and safety of firmware across the system — ensuring that what we build works dependably in the real world.
You'll drive design and code reviews, raising quality standards across the firmware team and fostering a culture of technical excellence. Beyond your own work, you'll actively contribute to improving development processes, tooling, and documentation as the team and product continue to scale.
Skills
You bring 5–7 years of professional software development experience with demonstrated excellence in the physical layer of complex systems, safety PLCs, motor control, sensor acquisition, and real-time control loops. You have deep proficiency in Python and object-oriented programming, writing clean, maintainable, well-tested code that scales. You're also strong in C and/or C++ for embedded systems development, including microcontrollers, RTOS environments, and embedded development toolchains. Hands-on experience with real-time operating systems, PLCs, and embedded development tools is a given, and you're comfortable picking up an oscilloscope to debug input/output problems, as at home on the bench as you are in the codebase.
You have a proven ability to read the manual for a complex peripheral, a rangefinder, a motor controller, and a robotic arm, and to collaborate with vendor support engineers to push them to the edge of their capabilities. You're experienced with version control via GitHub and collaborative development workflows, and familiarity with relevant safety standards such as ISO 13849, IEC 62046, ANSI B11, or ANSI RIA R15 is a strong plus. You communicate complex technical tradeoffs clearly to both engineering peers and non-technical stakeholders, and your detail-oriented, problem-solving nature makes you someone others rely on when things get hard.
You hold a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or have equivalent practical experience. You're genuinely excited about robotics, automation, and building physical AI systems that work reliably in the real world. This role is based on-site in Charlestown, MA, a minimum of 4 days per week — working with robots in a warehouse environment is part of the job and should be expected.
What We Do
We believe the best working experience is one where machines do the heavy lifting and people do the problem solving. Our robots work with people in the messy world of warehouse loading docks, reducing the real physical pain of unloading trucks and containers radically amplifying what each person can accomplish. Founded by an exceptional cast of robotics and machine learning experts, Pickle creates robots that work alongside people in the very messy world of the loading dock, reducing the backbreaking human effort that goes into getting your online orders to your door.
