About the Role
Join a small, fast-moving hardware team building the firmware that powers a next-generation consumer wearable platform. This is a founding-level embedded engineering role where you'll help define the firmware architecture and take a category-defining device from prototype all the way through mass production. The work spans low-power embedded design, biometric sensor integration, BLE connectivity, and production engineering — everything it takes to ship a reliable, long-life wearable product.
This is a full-time, on-site role based in New York, NY. You'll work in person with a tight-knit NYC engineering team alongside hardware, algorithms, product, and industrial design.
What You'll Do
Architect and develop embedded firmware for battery-powered wearable devices.
Own core systems for low-power wireless connectivity, sensor processing, and data pipelines.
Design and optimize Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connectivity for ultra-low-power operation.
Build robust power management systems to maximize battery life.
Develop multi-core embedded data pipelines for real-time sensor acquisition and processing.
Integrate biometric and environmental sensors via SPI, I2C, UART, GPIO, DMA, and interrupt-driven designs.
Optimize firmware performance, memory usage, latency, and reliability.
Lead board bring-up, debugging, validation, and manufacturing support.
Collaborate closely with hardware, algorithms, product, and industrial design teams from prototype to production.
Establish firmware best practices, testing frameworks, and CI workflows.
What We're Looking For
Required
6+ years of embedded firmware engineering experience building and delivering battery-powered wearable or consumer electronics products.
Proven track record shipping consumer electronics from development through production.
Deep expertise in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) systems and low-power embedded architectures.
Strong proficiency in Embedded C/C++ and RTOS-based systems (e.g., FreeRTOS, Zephyr).
Experience with ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers and modern debugging tools.
Hands-on experience with power management architectures for low-power embedded systems.
Experience building multi-core embedded data pipelines and optimizing always-on battery life.
Sensor integration experience using SPI, I2C, UART, GPIO, DMA, and interrupt-driven designs.
Board bring-up, debugging, validation, and manufacturing support experience.
Comfortable moving quickly in a fast-paced, collaborative startup environment and working in person.
Nice to Have
Background in sensor fusion, signal processing, or biometric sensing.
Experience with embedded platforms such as Nordic, Qualcomm, Ambiq, or STMicroelectronics.
Familiarity with secure bootloaders, OTA firmware updates, wireless certification, and embedded security.
Experience building wearable or health-tech devices.
Note: Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
Compensation & Benefits
Competitive salary: $160,000 – $200,000 annually, depending on experience.
Equity participation in an early-stage, venture-backed company.
Location
This role is on-site in New York, NY, USA. Candidates must be willing and able to work in person with the team in New York City. Remote work is not available for this position.
Clera is building autonomous AI agents that handle end-to-end recruiting operations. The company's AI agents find candidates, write personalized outreach, handle conversations, qualify fit, and schedule interviews without human intervention. Clera has raised pre-seed funding from top investors and has grown to marketplace scale with 40,000+ talents and hundreds of top startup customers. The company is now scaling its AI-native recruiting platform by hiring operators who supervise the agents, handle high-judgment moments, and close candidates that require human touch.
