What are the responsibilities and job description for the EE Firmware and Applications Engineer position at Cohu Inc.?
Job Description
Main Objectives
Essential Functions/Major Responsibilities:
Essential Quality Expectations
Qualifications & Requirements:
Main Objectives
- Acts as the technical bridge between a sales team and its customers, ensuring products and/or software are effectively customized, installed, and supported.
- Analyze client needs, provide pre/post-sales technical support, conduct product demonstrations, and create custom technical solutions.
- Evaluate feasibility and risk of new concepts using first-principles physics and empirical modeling.
- Deliver new and/or update electrical firmware implementing control solutions from pre/post customer interactions and applications involvement.
- Development, integration and lifecycle support of complex electrical control systems with a strong focus on firmware-related system integration and thermal system concepts to be integrated into an electro-mechanical robotic system.
Essential Functions/Major Responsibilities:
- Present technical solutions and resolve system-level issues in collaboration with customers and stakeholders.
- Collaborate with hardware engineers to interpret schematics, test prototypes, and validate hardware-software interaction.
- Develop firmware for microcontrollers (e.g., ARM Cortex-M) in C/C , focusing on bare-metal or RTOS environments.
- Debug system issues using logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and JTAG tools to troubleshoot code.
- Maintain technical documentation, including design specifications and code comments.
- Create low-level drivers for hardware peripherals (GPIOs, ADCs, Timers) and communication interfaces (CAN, USB, Bluetooth, IoT protocols). EtherCAT experience is a plus.
- Acting as a technical interface to internal departments as well as customers and external partners.
- Definition, alignment, and implementation of system requirements in close collaboration with hardware and mechanical engineering teams.
Essential Quality Expectations
- Strong analytical skills and the ability to make sound decisions under ambiguity using physical principles and engineering judgment.
- Excellent communication and moderation skills to lead interdisciplinary teams through complex trade-offs.
- Proactive mindset for identifying innovation opportunities and system improvements.
- Commitment to technical excellence, documentation, and knowledge transfer.
- Customer-oriented thinking and ability to represent the company in technical discussions.
Qualifications & Requirements:
- Education/Training: Bachelor's degree in computer engineering, electrical engineering, control engineering or a related field. (MSc, MEng, etc. desired)
- Experience: This position requires a minimum of 5 years of experience in the application support and firmware development of complex mechatronic systems, ideally in semiconductor backend equipment and a minimum of 5 years as a direct engineer in a discipline, preferably firmware development.
- Skills/Technical Requirements:
- Strong proficiency in C and C .
- Strong understanding of microcontroller architecture, memory management, and digital circuit design.
- Experience with technical standards and industrial development processes.
- Experience in bootloader development and using GIT/SVN.
- Experience with communication protocols like UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, EtherCAT.
- Strong analytical and debugging skills to resolve complex technical challenges.
- Understanding and/or working experience with thermal systems, motion control, control systems.
- Willingness to travel as required for projects and customer support.
- Excellent English communication skills: German and/or French is a plus.