Senior Power Electronics Firmware Engineer

Posted Yesterday
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San Francisco, CA, USA
In-Office
170K-195K Annually
Senior level
Fitness • Hardware • Healthtech • Software
The Role
Develop and improve embedded firmware for motor control and power systems, including FOC, power management, safety protections, board bring-up, performance tuning, automated testing, manufacturing calibration, and field issue investigation. Collaborate with electrical, mechanical, software, and product teams while debugging hardware/firmware interfaces and supporting high-volume production.
Summary Generated by Built In
Overview

Tonal is looking for a Senior Power Electronics Firmware Engineer to develop the firmware for our motor drive and power systems. That drive generates up to 250 pounds of digital weight, so its firmware defines how Tonal feels to every member. You’ll contribute at every stage, from concept, prototyping, and bring-up through validation and high-volume production.

You’ll join the Firmware team in our Hardware department, working closely with electrical, mechanical, and software engineers. Together, you’ll tackle challenges that span motor control, power conversion, thermal limits, and member safety. Our team offers a rare chance to shape the core technology of a new fitness category.

What You Will Do
  • Develop and improve motor control and power management firmware that makes Tonal’s digital weight feel smooth and responsive

  • Add and maintain protection features, such as overcurrent and overtemperature handling, that keep members safe

  • Bring up and debug new boards in the lab with the electrical team

  • Test and tune motor performance, and help build the tools and automated tests that validate each release

  • Support manufacturing test and calibration, and help investigate issues from the field

  • Work with software, mechanical, and product teams to turn member feedback into firmware improvements

  • Take part in design and code reviews, and help improve how the team builds and ships firmware

Who You Are
  • 5+ years of embedded firmware development, including 3+ years focused on motor control or power electronics

  • Expert C development for real-time, resource-constrained systems; experience in C++ and Python is also valuable

  • Experience developing multithreaded firmware on an RTOS, including scheduling, synchronization, and interrupt handling for timing-critical tasks

  • Hands-on experience implementing FOC for PMSM/BLDC motors, including current-loop tuning and sensored or sensorless position estimation

  • Solid power electronics fundamentals: inverters, DC-DC converters, PWM techniques such as SVPWM, gate drivers, current and voltage sensing, and thermal behavior

  • Experience designing discrete-time control loops, filters, and observers, and modeling them in MATLAB/Simulink or Python

  • Experience with motor-control MCUs or DSPs (e.g., TI C2000, STM32, NXP) and communication protocols such as CAN, UART, SPI, and I2C

  • Experience with safety-critical systems, including protection, fault handling, and diagnostics for high-power hardware

  • Comfortable debugging at the hardware/firmware boundary with oscilloscopes, current and differential probes, power analyzers, and dynamometers

  • Creative problem solver who isn’t afraid to push boundaries and think differently, with high attention to detail

  • Great oral and written communication skills

  • Team player with high integrity and self-awareness, open to feedback and constantly striving to improve

Extra Credit
  • Experience with functional or appliance safety standards, such as IEC 60730 (Class B software), IEC 60335, IEC 61508, or ISO 26262

  • Experience managing regenerative energy in motor drives, such as braking resistor control and DC bus regulation

  • Experience with digitally controlled power conversion, such as PFC or DC-DC stages

  • Experience with unit testing, software- and hardware-in-the-loop (SIL/HIL) testing, Git, and CI tools such as Jenkins

  • Experience with EMC/EMI and safety compliance testing for motor drives

  • Experience with bootloaders and secure over-the-air firmware updates

  • Experience shipping high-volume consumer hardware

At Tonal, we believe that the unique and varied lived experiences of our teammates contribute to our overall strength. We don’t just appreciate differences, we celebrate them, and we always seek people that represent a wide variety of backgrounds. We’re dedicated to adding new perspectives to the team and designing employee experiences that contribute to your growth as much as you do to ours. If your experience aligns with what we’re looking for (even if you don’t check every single box), send us your application. We would love to hear from you!

 

Tonal is committed to meeting the diverse needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner that is consistent with the principles of independence, dignity, integration, and equality of opportunity. Should you have any accommodation requests, please reach out to us via our confidential email, [email protected]. All requests will be addressed and responded to in accordance with Tonal’s Accessibility Policy and local legislation.

Skills Required

  • 5+ years of embedded firmware development experience
  • 3+ years focused on motor control or power electronics
  • Expert-level C development for real-time, resource-constrained systems
  • Experience with C++ and Python
  • Experience developing multithreaded firmware on an RTOS, including scheduling, synchronization, and interrupt handling
  • Experience implementing FOC for PMSM or BLDC motors, including current-loop tuning and position estimation
  • Strong power electronics fundamentals, including inverters, DC-DC converters, PWM, gate drivers, sensing, and thermal behavior
  • Experience designing discrete-time control loops, filters, and observers using MATLAB/Simulink or Python
  • Experience with motor-control MCUs or DSPs such as TI C2000, STM32, or NXP
  • Experience with CAN, UART, SPI, and I2C communication protocols
  • Experience with safety-critical systems, protection, fault handling, and diagnostics for high-power hardware
  • Experience debugging hardware/firmware interfaces using oscilloscopes, probes, power analyzers, and dynamometers
  • Experience with functional or appliance safety standards such as IEC 60730, IEC 60335, IEC 61508, or ISO 26262
  • Experience managing regenerative energy in motor drives
  • Experience with digitally controlled power conversion, including PFC or DC-DC stages
  • Experience with unit testing, SIL/HIL testing, Git, and Jenkins
  • Experience with EMC/EMI and safety compliance testing for motor drives
  • Experience with bootloaders and secure over-the-air firmware updates
  • Experience shipping high-volume consumer hardware
  • Strong oral and written communication skills
  • Collaborative team orientation, high integrity, self-awareness, and openness to feedback
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The Company
HQ: San Francisco, CA
250 Employees
Year Founded: 2015

What We Do

Tonal is the most powerful way to be, look, and feel your strongest. Unlike traditional dumbbells and barbells, Tonal uses advanced digital weight that continually adapts workouts so they’re most effective for you—all led by our expert coaches. No matter if you’re a beginner or an expert, you’ll #BeYourStrongest with Tonal. www.tonal.com/careers All official Tonal career communication will come from a @tonal.com email address. If you are ever uncertain of whether a solicitation is from Tonal or an approved recruiting partner of ours, please reach out to [email protected].

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