AddressBase Pay: £55,000 - 70,000
Bonus: 0-10%+ (Based on Company Performance)
Share options: £10,000
Senior level as per our Career Development Framework.
We've calculated this compensation in line with our Benchmarking Philosophy.
Opportunity for a Senior Embedded Software Engineer to join a high-growth technology start-up focused on eliminating fuel poverty and improving living standards in social housing through data insights.
Role:Senior Embedded Software Engineer (Senior Individual Contributor)
Reporting to: Devices Lead
Location: This is a remote-first role, with a mix of in-person team meetings, as well as limited company and head office gatherings.
Our mission
At Switchee, we believe that everyone deserves to live in a decent home and that the environments we inhabit have a massive influence on our ability to enjoy life and prosper.
One in five households in the UK live in social housing, a sector with the right values at its core but that has historically struggled to deploy innovations in the home. Many residents still can’t afford to heat their homes, and live in cold, mouldy properties they can’t be proud of.
We believe that radical innovation in internet-connected technology can ensure that every resident, every day, is living in a home that allows them to succeed. That’s why our products are built not just on great technology, but on an understanding of what people want from the space they live in.
This approach led us to reimagine the most mundane household object: the thermostat, into a product that automatically reduces energy bills, looks great, and offers control to those who want it. We are also revolutionising the way social landlords manage their housing stock with an obsessively tailored SaaS property dashboard and handy alerts on things like when the boiler is going to break.
Our goal is to perfect the ultimate connected hub for the social home. It’s going to revolutionise the way residents interact with their homes and landlords manage their properties.
At Switchee your growth and development will be the focal point for your quarterly performance and progression conversations with your manager. We will encourage you to reflect on our Career Development Framework to enable you to grow in line with your scope of role and responsibilities. Our CDF is divided into levels where a selection of expected behaviours describes your ability to move up on the career ladder for your role. We have had 20% promotions in the last 12 months, and our manager:employee ratio is 1:3.
The Role
You will be a senior member of the team responsible for taking Switchee’s class-leading smart thermostats, sensors and IoT hubs to the next level, as we seek to revolutionise social housing in the UK and worldwide.
As Senior Embedded Software Engineer, it will be your responsibility to architect, design, implement and verify the embedded firmware for our next generation of smart IoT thermostats. Additionally, you will be assisting our talented group of embedded engineers with upgrading the firmware of our existing products as we transition into the development of our new generation of devices. As a senior member of the team you will be tackling the hardest problems in our product development, from architecting/designing device’s firmware to improving the reliability of our wireless comms, or integrating with new “green” tech such as heat pumps and solar arrays. You will prove your ability to drive a feature or product to completion.
Our hardware products are intelligent low-power embedded IoT devices comprising microcontrollers, sensors, and numerous wired and wireless communication interfaces. We design the hardware, write the firmware and sub-contract manufacturing.
We are looking for someone with drive and a creative mind, capable of solving complex problems in a neat, simple and reliable fashion. The ideal candidate is a self-starter who can get things done with minimal supervision and mentor more junior members of the team.
You will join the Embedded Software team and work closely with our Hardware, Product Management, Cloud software and QA teams.
Qualifications
Ideal:
Solid commercial embedded programming experience (5+ years) in C/C++ and preferably scripting languages like python, bash;
Experience in writing software for resource constrained microcontrollers in bare-metal and RTOS environments;
Proven experience in architecting and designing embedded firmware from scratch
Experience in IoT protocols such as MQTT, CoAp, etc… and cloud integration
Experience in common interfaces such as SPI, I2C, UART, USB, etc…;
- Specific experience in at least one of the following topics:
Wireless protocols (particularly GSM, LTE and/or ZWave)
Graphics libraries for embedded applications (such as LVGL);
IoT device security and related software libraries/tools.
Good understanding of electronic devices based on microcontroller, manufacturing and prototyping.
At home with distributed version control software (ideally Git)
Nice to haves (you might not have all of these, but the more the better):
Experience with CI/CD pipelines (ideally with Github actions)
Experience with automation embedded automation frameworks e.g. Pytest
Experience with GCC toolchain on Linux or MacOs environment;
Familiarity with software configuration management tools, defect tracking tools, and peer review like Jira and confluence;
Good understanding of modern QA methodologies and practices
Awareness of TDD concepts
Familiarity with heating systems control and/or protocols (e.g. Opentherm, EMS, Ebus, etc.) would be a plus
We look for people who share our values and can add to our culture. Values are shared beliefs that guide our decision-making, and culture is how we function as a group and how we live our values as individuals.
Who You Are
We are a diverse bunch of people at Switchee. That said, there are some characteristics we always look for:
The desire to build something revolutionary.
Care about the environment and are interested in energy efficiency.
Interested in technology and neat solutions to complex problems.
Biassed toward action.
You're open, positive, and straightforward.
We are not able to nurture success for those who don’t thrive on challenge and change.
We are not a team for people who believe in negative chatter and gossip.
Perks
- Unlimited holiday policy + Bank Holidays so you can take as much as you want! No need to count those Winter break days anymore! Everyone at Switchee enjoys flexible working hours and is the master of their own routine.
We have a remote-first Hybrid Working Model, with offices near London Bridge.
We will provide you with all the necessary equipment to work from home in a safe and enjoyable manner.
We socialise together with regular outings in London, Quarterly Company Off-sites and an annual “working remotely” trip where you have the option (but no obligation) to join us in working from a fun location.
We are hosting regular Virtual Socials and keep finding creative ways of staying connected with each other.
We provide an L&D budget and access to our Switchee Library, where you can request new books monthly.
We provide access to ThanksBen - a platform with plentiful discounts and free virtual well-being sessions.
We offer Spill, a Mental Health app at your fingertips, where you can get in touch with a therapist in record time.
P.S Switchee is a Disability Confident Employer and we aim to provide reasonable adjustments for our new hires to ensure they are successful and supported in their roles. We also practice an anti-bias approach to recruitment. Read more about it here.
Application Process:
1. Phone Screen - with Keziah (Talent Partner) or Olya (Head of People)
2. Technical Interview - with Raul (Devices Lead) & member of the Product Engineering team
3. Task & Presentation + Q&A - with Raul and other members of the devices team or wider Product Engineering department.
4. Culture interview - with Olya (Head of People) or Keziah (Talent Partner) & another SLT member.
To prepare for the interview stages, review all the available information about Switchee online, and our careers website and most importantly, prepare real-life examples of having dealt with the responsibilities listed in the job description.
Our average time to hire is 24 days, this is from the moment we receive your CV to the offer letter sent.
