Firmware Applications Engineer

Location: Neuchatel

About Our Team

Semtech’s Wireless Applications team is a global group of talented engineers dedicated to ensuring successful customer design‑ins of Semtech wireless and LoRa® solutions.

We develop and deliver advanced hardware and firmware IoT solutions for the LPWAN space, supporting customers and partners worldwide.

Job Summary

We are seeking a Staff Firmware Applications Engineer to play a key role in enabling customer success with Semtech’s wireless technology.

In this hands‑on role, you will develop evaluation firmware, reference application code, and customer enablement examples that validate and demonstrate Semtech IoT solutions.

You will work closely with Field Application Engineers and customers to debug embedded software, resolve integration challenges, and accelerate adoption of LoRaWAN and other LPWAN wireless protocols.

Additionally, you will benchmark firmware solutions, evaluate RF device and SDK performance, produce high‑quality technical documentation, and contribute to field testing activities, collaborating with global teams across multiple sites.

Key Responsibilities

Customer & Internal Technical Support (~40%)

• Provide hands‑on support to Field Application Engineers and customers, resolving firmware integration issues and debugging embedded software.
• Accelerate customer design‑in and adoption of Semtech wireless technology.

Firmware Development & Evaluation (~40%)

• Develop and maintain evaluation firmware, low‑level drivers, and silicon bring‑up support for Semtech RF transceiver products.
• Integrate and evaluate Semtech SDKs and development tools; identify issues and propose improvements.
• Build reference applications, proof‑of‑concept implementations, and customer enablement examples for LoRa‑based and multi‑protocol IoT solutions.
• Benchmark firmware solutions and evaluate RF device/SDK performance across power, latency, throughput, memory footprint, and RTOS environments.

Technical Documentation (~20%)

• Produce high‑quality technical documentation, including application notes, getting‑started guides, code examples, and training materials to promote Semtech products and facilitate LoRa technology adoption.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 3–5 years of professional experience in embedded firmware development (C/C++), including low‑level driver development, hardware bring‑up, and debugging on resource‑constrained MCU platforms.
• Solid understanding of MCU architectures (ARM Cortex‑M, RISC‑V) and RTOS environments (Zephyr, FreeRTOS, ThreadX, or equivalent).
• Experience with debugging techniques (JTAG, SWD), hardware interfaces (UART, SPI, I²C, JTAG), and measurement tools (oscilloscope, logic analyzer, power profiler).
• Proficiency with embedded development toolchains (GCC, GNU Make, VS Code), version control (Git), CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI or equivalent), and shell scripting.
• Python programming experience for test automation, scripting, or tooling.
• Familiarity with wireless communication protocols (LoRaWAN, other LPWAN, Thread, Zigbee, Sidewalk, BLE, LTE‑M, NB‑I oT) is highly desirable.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience with SoC‑based development platforms, SDK setup, BSP configuration, and hardware‑software co‑debug.
• Expertise in benchmarking embedded firmware: power, latency, throughput, memory optimization.
• Knowledge of RF and wireless system fundamentals to support RF‑related customer issues.
• Strong analytical, creative, and solution‑oriented problem‑solving skills.
• Curiosity, adaptability, and ability to manage multiple concurrent tasks in a fast‑paced, multi‑technology environment.
• Excellent communication skills, capable of explaining complex firmware and protocol concepts to technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Comfortable collaborating within a distributed, multi‑site engineering team.
• Full professional proficiency in English; French is a plus.

Career Growth Philosophy

At Semtech, we believe innovation starts with people. We are committed to empowering professional development through mentorship, continuous learning resources, and a collaborative, idea‑rich engineering environment.

Our pay‑for‑performance culture rewards initiative, encourages growth, and recognises meaningful technical and leadership contributions. Engineers in this role are supported to expand their influence, deepen their expertise, and shape both their career progression and the future of Semtech’s digital engineering capabilities.

Additional Notes

The intent of this job description is to outline the major duties and responsibilities of this position. Incumbents may be required to perform job‑related tasks beyond those listed.

All duties and responsibilities are considered essential job functions and requirements.