Embedded Software Engineer, Microcontrollers

Base is America’s next-generation power company. We’re rebuilding the foundation of modern civilization–electricity–by deploying a vast network of distributed batteries that is transforming today’s fragile, centralized grid into a resilient and abundant system. We are engineers, operators, and creatives solving some of the most complex, interdisciplinary challenges of our time.

As an Embedded Software Engineer on the Embedded MCU team, you'll own the microcontroller firmware that directly controls Base's power hardware: the batteries, inverters, and disconnect systems in every home we serve. You'll write the bare-metal and RTOS software from control logic, state machines, and fault handling down through drivers, BSP/HAL, and peripheral configuration, and it has to run flawlessly and safely in the field.

As Base's hardware portfolio grows, you'll lead the bring-up of new boards, build reusable firmware libraries that make each new product faster to ship, and act as the primary software partner to our hardware and power electronics engineers on the HW/SW boundary. You'll design deterministic real-time control and protection within hard timing budgets, own device communications over CAN, and see your firmware deployed across a rapidly growing fleet.

• Own the business logic running on Base's microcontrollers: state machines, control and sequencing logic, fault handling, and safety coordination for our batteries, inverters, and disconnect systems.

• Lead new hardware bring-up end to end, from peripheral configuration and driver development through BSP/HAL integration, and cut the time it takes to get new boards running.

• Implement and tune deterministic real-time control and protection on multi-core MCUs, partitioning work across cores and staying within hard ISR timing and jitter budgets.

• Build and maintain the device communications stack, including CAN/CAN-FD drivers, buffering, and transport reliability, plus higher-level protocols and the firmware-update flows that run over them.

• Serve as the primary software interface to Hardware Engineering: join schematic reviews, weigh in on processor and peripheral selection, pin assignments, and timing, and debug HW/SW integration issues on the bench.

• Build reusable firmware libraries and coding standards in place of product-specific implementations, so each new product ships faster than the last.

• Take new products from prototype through production firmware and into the field, using hardware-in-the-loop testing and crash dumps to drive down field-reported firmware issues.

• Hands-on experience shipping bare-metal and/or RTOS firmware on modern microcontrollers (e.g. ARM Cortex-M), including taking one or more products to manufacturing.

• Deep expertise in C/C++: clean, modular, defensive code, with a solid grasp of memory management, ISR-safe patterns, and compiler and runtime behavior.

• Comfort reading schematics and datasheets and working directly with hardware and power electronics engineers to make sound design and processor-selection tradeoffs.

• Strong instincts for firmware architecture: clean separation of responsibilities, minimal shared state, observability built in from the start, and designs that roll out safely and fail predictably.

• A first-principles mindset, a track record of finding the simplest solution to hard embedded problems, and root-cause debugging skills that reach all the way down to the hardware.

• Nice to have: experience designing deterministic real-time control and protection on multi-core MCUs, with robust fault handling and safe recovery.

• Nice to have: experience with CAN/CAN-FD and higher-level protocols such as ISO-TP and UDS, including firmware updates over CAN.

• Nice to have: familiarity with power electronics, grid-tied inverters, or battery management is a plus, but we expect strong engineers to ramp into the domain quickly.

The Embedded MCU team owns the firmware closest to Base's hardware: the software running on the microcontrollers inside our batteries, inverters, and disconnect systems. We bring up every new board, write the control and protection logic that keeps our power hardware safe and responsive, and define the interfaces between that hardware and the rest of Base's software. As our hardware portfolio grows, we're building reusable firmware that makes each new product faster to bring up and more reliable in the field. We work side by side with hardware and power electronics engineers, in the lab and on the bench. If you want to write firmware that controls real power hardware and see it deployed at speed across a growing fleet, this is the team.

Please note: Base is a startup, which means priorities shift and evolve quickly. Your role may expand or change based on the needs of the business at any given time, so the responsibilities listed may not be exhaustive.

• First Principles Thinking: Question assumptions. Principles > rules.

• Operate at Base Pace: Focus on what matters, act quickly, and learn by doing.

• Give & Get Feedback: Be direct, be humble, and maintain a growth mindset.

• Everyone’s an Owner: Follow through on commitments and own results.

• Strong Opinions, Loosely Held: Drive clarity and make calls with imperfect information.

• Committed to the Mission: Rebuilding the grid is a big challenge. We work hard because we care deeply about the impact we’re creating. We work in-person. It’s not a 9-to-5. We are all-in.

• Fun & Optimism Coexist with Grit: Collaboration and celebration coincide with the intensity of building real things.