Principal Embedded Firmware Engineer — AI/HPC Networking Silicon

Cornelis Networks delivers the world’s highest performance scale-out networking solutions for AI and HPC datacenters. Our differentiated architecture seamlessly integrates hardware, software and system level technologies to maximize the efficiency of GPU, CPU and accelerator-based compute clusters at any scale. Our solutions drive breakthroughs in AI & HPC workloads, empowering our customers to push the boundaries of innovation.

Backed by top-tier venture capital and strategic investors, we are committed to innovation, performance and scalability - solving the world’s most demanding computational challenges with our next-generation networking solutions.

We are a fast-growing, forward-thinking team of architects, engineers, and business professionals with a proven track record of building successful products and companies. As a global organization, our team spans multiple U.S. states and six countries, and we continue to expand with exceptional talent in onsite, hybrid, and fully remote roles.

About The Role Cornelis Networks builds high-performance fabric solutions for AI and HPC. We’re looking for a principal-level embedded engineer to help architect firmware across our next-generation networking silicon. A key focus of the role is the management firmware that boots, secures, and controls the on-chip compute engines that accelerate collective communication (all-reduce, broadcast, reduce-scatter), alongside broader embedded architecture work across the platform. You’ll own the infrastructure layer that makes these engines trustworthy and production-ready, not the collective algorithms themselves.

This role is a mixture of hands-on architecture, firmware development, technical leadership, and mentorship, with heavy use of AI tools across design, implementation, and testing.

Location: Remote (US)

What You’ll Do

• Architect and implement bare-metal C firmware on a RISC-V management core that provisions, boots, and supervises arrays of on-chip acceleration engines.
• Own the secure firmware-loading pipeline: fetch images from flash, coordinate hardware root-of-trust authentication, and distribute verified images into each engine’s local memories through on-chip fan-out/DMA hardware.
• Build per-engine bring-up, reset sequencing, and health validation driven by control/status registers, with solid timeout and error handling and enforced security invariants.
• Scale firmware distribution and bring-up across many engines and multiple dies, including runtime re-boot and in-field firmware updates.
• Define the hardware/software contract with ASIC/RTL teams using a datamodel-first workflow (e.g., SystemRDL, Kaitai, YAML → generated code).
• Validate firmware against functional simulators (e.g., QEMU) with automated unit and integration tests.
• Set architecture standards, review designs and code, and mentor engineers.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of embedded/firmware engineering, with a track record of software architecture and technical leadership.
• Expert C (C++ a plus) and working Python.
• Deep experience with bare-metal firmware on constrained cores, including manually managed local memories and low level bring-up.
• Experience with secure boot / image authentication and hardware root-of-trust integration.
• Experience programming hardware CSRs and co-designing register-level interfaces with silicon teams.
• Demonstrated, hands-on AI-assisted engineering proficiency, plus the judgment to validate what the AI produces.

Preferred Qualifications

• RISC-V firmware and toolchain experience.
• Firmware orchestration for multi-core accelerator arrays.
• Hardware root-of-trust ecosystems (e.g., Caliptra) and SHA-2/signature verification.
• Code-generation toolchains (SystemRDL, Kaitai, CMake) and simulator-based co-verification.
• Familiarity with emerging AI/HPC interconnect standards: Ultra Ethernet (UEC), UALink, and ESUN.
• Background in HPC/AI networking, RDMA, or libfabric.

Location:

Remote: This role fully supports remote work for employees residing within the United States.

We offer a competitive compensation package that includes equity, cash, and incentives, along with health and retirement benefits. Our dynamic, flexible work environment provides the opportunity to collaborate with some of the most influential names in the semiconductor industry.

At Cornelis Networks your base salary is only one component of your comprehensive tota…