Device Software Engineer (Embedded Linux)

San Francisco

Our Mission

SPAN is enabling electrification for all

SPAN is mission-driven to design, build, and deploy products that electrify our built environment, decarbonize our world, and slow the effects of climate change.

• Decarbonization is the process to reduce or remove greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, from entering our atmosphere.
• Electrification is the process of replacing fossil fuel appliances that run on gas or oil with all-electric upgrades for a cleaner way to power our lives.

At SPAN, we believe in:

• Enabling homes and vehicles powered by clean energy
• Making electrification upgrades possible
• Building more resilient homes with reliable backup
• Designing a flexible and distributed electrical grid 

The Role

The Device Software Platform Team maintains the embedded Linux platform powering SPAN’s hardware products in energy metering, load management, and EV charging. As a staff engineer on the team, you will:

• Develop and maintain embedded Linux board support packages (BSP), as well as bootloader, kernel, package management, and system/application configuration for Span’s application gateway.
• Partner with teams across SPAN — embedded software, electrical design, manufacturing, security, and cloud infrastructure — to prioritize and build new capabilities for our embedded Linux platform.
• Support Linux image builds on our production release pipeline.

Representative Projects

• System-on-Module (SOM) and manufacturing bringup and debugging for our new hardware product offerings.
• Design, develop a protocol and driver stack for reliable, high-throughput electrical telemetry and IPC to our embedded system over USB.
• Development of new application development workflows using virtualization and emulation.

About You

Required Qualifications:

• Proficiency in embedded Linux build systems, such as Yocto/OpenEmbedded or Buildroot, as well as related software like U-Boot.
• Proficiency in C and Linux for application and driver development; experience building maintainable tools in other languages, such as Python, Bash, Go, or Rust.
• Solid fundamentals in software and API design best practices, instrumentation, testing, and debugging.
• Excellent interpersonal communication and collaboration skills.
• Track record of taking ownership over projects and willingness to help others with theirs, from design and code review through to mentorship of new employees.

Bonus Qualifications:

Experience with one or more of:

• Building networked home consumer hardware products, using wired/wireless communications (e.g. WiFi, Bluetooth, 802.15.4, cell, I2C, SPI, UART, USB, Ethernet, PCI-E.), cloud backends (e.g., REST, GraphQL, MQTT, AWS IoT).
• Knowledge of basic embedded electronics and instrumentation: familiarity with hardware schematics and data sheets and using logic analyzers for developing and validating peripheral interfaces.
• Build, release, and automation best practices for high-quality production software releases, internal tools, and container-based development environments.
• Clean energy hardware in a multidisciplinary environment.

The U.S. base salary range for this position is $134,000- $200,000 plus benefits, equity and variable compensation for Sales-related roles. This range represents SPAN’s good faith estimate of competitively-priced salary for the role based on national, real-time industry data from companies of a similar growth stage. This range reflects minimum and maximum new hire salaries for the role in San Francisco county. Within the range, individual pay is determined by location and individual factors including relevant skills, experience and education or training. This range correlates to the relative level of the candidate we believe we need for the role and may require an adjustment for candidates of a different level. 

Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the location this role is based during the hiring process. 

Life at SPAN

SPAN embraces diversity and equal opportunity in a serious way. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. 

Headquartered in San Francisco’s vibrant SoMa neighborhood, we are an eclectic group of creative thinkers who value open communication, teamwork, and a ‘make it happen’ approach to addressing complex challenges. 

We’re hiring talented individuals who are driven by success and are passionate about shaping the future of renewable energy. If that sounds like you, we’d love for you to consider joining the rapidly growing team at SPAN.

The Perks:

⚡ Competitive compensation + equity grants at a well-funded, venture-backed company

⚡ Comprehensive benefits (including medical; dental, vision, life and disability insurance)

⚡ Comfortable, sunny office space located near BART and Caltrain public transit

⚡ Strong focus on teambuilding and company culture (events, meet-ups, clubs)

⚡ Flexible hours and unlimited PTO

Interested in joining our team? Submit an application today and we’ll be in touch with next steps!