Job Title: Senior Firmware Engineer

Degree Required: BS or higher

Academic Discipline(s): Electrical and Electronics Engineering or related field

Job Description:

Tenafe is currently seeking Senior Firmware Design professionals to join a growing team working on next generation Enterprise NVMe Solid State Drive (SSD) solutions. Our team is growing rapidly, and we are looking to bring on talented Firmware Developers with strong experience in SSD controllers and Firmware.

In this position, you will be involved in the architecture, design and development of next generation Enterprise NVMe SSD with new and cutting-edge firmware. You will be responsible for NVMe firmware development, developing algorithm model for SSD architecture, implementation of the development and quality assurance processes.

The role also includes algorithm modeling, benchmarking, and implementation in firmware. The team utilizes Agile development methodologies, therefore, excellent communication skills and the ability to work closely with team members, both locally and across the organization is required.

Job Duties/Responsibilities:

• Work with the Architecture Team to develop algorithms for the next generation of PCIe NVMe storage devices and flash management systems
• Review and understand ASIC Hardware architecture/feature design for a new SSD (Solid State Drive) controller
• Develop and implement new hardware modules in the SSD controller software simulator to model the hardware, including new NAND models
• Development of the hardware abstraction layer and other features for the NVMe SSD firmware
• Be a part of the Firmware Team that is responsible for developing customer features
• Participate in back-end (FTL and NAND) high-level and low-level firmware design
• Provide performance and resource usage data by running firmware in the software simulator and relaying information to the ASIC Architecture/Design Team to optimize hardware design
• Assist with earlier firmware feature development by integrating and running the under-development firmware in the developed simulator and validate the correctness of firmware flow
• Development of firmware used to demonstrate the proof of concept as well as for validation purpose. Integrate full firmware flow at system level to run full firmware in simulator
• Development of firmware unit tests and regression tests
• Support NAND failure analysis, by using NAND model and SSD
• Work with the ASIC Hardware/Firmware Team to bring-up and validate new designs at module level and a full data path when hardware design and implementation is completed
• Identify existing legacy design defects in the SSD controller firmware, hardware, or legacy software simulator modeling code and ensure the code is reworked to resolve the same
• Debug using analyzer and proprietary diagnostic tools, and diagnostic software applications
• If there are any issues faced by the customer in the field with regards to the existing or legacy product firmware or hardware, the same would need to be reproduced with the software simulator model as well and a corresponding test case developed so that the test-setup is available to appropriate a suitable fix/workaround
• Technical documentation for developed SSD controller software simulator modeling code, tests, framework, describing the code-flow and algorithms, test procedures, etc.
• Conduct team meetings with other stake holders in the project such as the Firmware Developers working on other modules/algorithms, the Software Applications Team, the Hardware Development Team, the System Designer/Architect, Hardware Validation Engineer, to discuss architectural issues, reported defects and solutions.

Required Qualifications:

• 10 years of experience in firmware development and 3 years of experience in direct SSD firmware development
• Strong storage domain experience
• Firmware design/implementation/debug experience on multi-CPU SoCs
• Strong experience in NAND, NAND management, SSD firmware and related algorithms
• Strong experience in SSD performance characterization and latest SSD domain trends
• Knowledge and experience of NVMe firmware development
• Excellent programming experience in C / C
• Good understanding of SSD hardware blocks and data path flow
• Working knowledge of NAND characteristic and behavior
• Working knowledge of FTL and NAND management
• Well-versed with NAND and NAND Flash Architecture of SSD
• Self-motivated and able to work well with people in the team
• Strong hands-on experience in system programming and firmware development
• Experience in PCIe/NVMe and NAND Flash command protocols and process
• Good understanding of hardware modeling and software simulator concept