# Firmware Engineer - Testing at 1X

1X is hiring a Firmware Engineer - Testing. It pays $150k-$190k a year and Level rates it Little AI ●○○○; you can [apply on 1X](https://jobsbylevel.com/go/81e8ed80-d66e-4325-a62c-bd4763030786?utm_medium=ai-agent).

AI Level 1, AI centrality 18 out of 100. San Carlos, CA.

## Details

- Company: [1X](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/1x)
- AI level: AI Level 1 (score 18 out of 100)
- Location: San Carlos, CA
- Salary: $150k-$190k
- Posted: October 30, 2026
- Apply: https://jobsbylevel.com/go/81e8ed80-d66e-4325-a62c-bd4763030786?utm_medium=ai-agent
- Free CV review for this job: https://jobsbylevel.com/cv-review?job=firmware-engineer-testing-at-1x-504aa1

## Description

About 1X We're building humanoid robots that work in home - doing the chores, handling the tasks, and giving people their time back. Simple, but it's not. To do this right, we have to solve robotics, AI, manufacturing - at the same time, at scale, in a form factor that has to be safe enough to live with your family. If you're inspired by this, you'll thrive here. We've been at this since 2014 and we're at the point where the hard problems are behind us and the hard work is in front of us. NEO is our flagship - a home robot designed to move, learn, and operate in the real world alongside real people. We're not demoing it - we're shipping it. We're excited to meet you, if this excites you. If you've spent your career working on problems that matter and want to see them actually reach the world - this is that moment. We're scaling, we're hiring with intention, and we need people who want to build something that will genuinely change how humans spend their time - safely creating abundance for all. About the Team The Firmware team owns the embedded software on every hardware subsystem in NEO: communication architecture, power management and motor control. That firmware is what lets NEO move safely, take on new hardware quickly and scale across many embedded nodes, and it gates our biggest product milestones on the way to production. Your Charter The mission of this role is to make every firmware release safe to put on robots in people's homes, while keeping firmware developers shipping fast. You own firmware quality across NEO and are the testing partner for every firmware developer on the team. You decide whether a release is ready to go out, and you build the rigs, automation and test plans that tell the team quickly when something is broken. Key Outcomes Own firmware release quality: define release test criteria, run release qualification and sign off on every firmware release before it reaches the fleet Partner with every firmware developer early in feature work to define test strategy, close coverage gaps and get feedback into their hands before code merges, so the team ships faster without breaking the robot Build hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test rigs, from single boards to full actuator and robot setups, with fault injection for power, communication and sensor failures and validation of real-time buses (EtherCAT, CAN/CAN FD, SPI, UART, I2C) Deliver automated Python regression suites that run in CI on every firmware change with clear pass/fail results, and turn field and fleet issues into new regression tests Prove that safety-critical and security behavior works as specified, including fault detection, current and thermal limits, safe torque-off, secure boot and firmware signing, under edge cases and malformed inputs Drive fleet robustness by confirming every node recovers to a known safe state without manual intervention after failed or interrupted updates, power loss during flashing, corrupted images and watchdog resets, backed by long-duration soak and stress testing Key Competencies You treat developer velocity as your own goal. You find out what each firmware engineer needs to test their work and get it to them before they have to ask You do whatever the job calls for: manual bench testing, writing automation, building a custom fixture or modifying hardware to reach a hard-to-test condition You break complex embedded systems into testable requirements and find the failure modes others miss, especially in fault handling and safety behavior, which you prove rather than assume You can work out whether a bug lives in firmware, hardware or the test setup, using a scope, logic analyzer and bus analyzer You script anything you run twice, write clear bug reports and push back on unclear requirements, working closely with firmware, electrical, actuator and operations engineers Minimum Requirements Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science or a related field, or equivalent experience,

The description is cut here. Read the full offer: https://jobsbylevel.com/jobs/firmware-engineer-testing-at-1x-504aa1

Source: https://jobsbylevel.com/jobs/firmware-engineer-testing-at-1x-504aa1

## Cite this page

Level. https://jobsbylevel.com/jobs/firmware-engineer-testing-at-1x-504aa1.

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