Senior Firmware Engineer

Purpose

The Ocado Mobile Robotics department seeks a Software Engineer with experience in firmware to join its firmware team and contribute towards the development of a new product: a pallet-moving autonomous mobile robot. This is a transformational development which will unlock more opportunities for Ocado Intelligent Automation partners, and support use cases such as inbound and depal in OSP CFCs.

Ocado Mobile Robotics spans multiple development centres (Greece/Athens, Bulgaria/Sofia, and UK/Welwyn Garden City), and occasional travel may be required to support development work, demonstrations, and deployments.

You will join a small, friendly team of Software Engineers focussed on firmware in Athens and the UK, within a broader international group of firmware engineers.

This role includes among others:

• Taking ownership of entire features, such as bootloaders, safety systems, motor control, movement quality, and build chains.
• Architecting the codebase with a focus on reusability, hardware abstraction, and testability. Your code should be self-documenting and easily comprehensible to your peers.
• Implementing process enhancements to boost team productivity.
• Developing and testing code using diverse methodologies including unit testing, simulation, hardware-in-the-loop, and system integration in fully assembled robots.
• Leading specific feature developments, breaking them down into manageable tasks for parallel execution among team members.
• Conducting risk analyses and designing self-testing code suitable for functionally safe systems.
• Maintaining a hands-on approach, utilizing common tools and hardware to design and prototype innovative robotic platforms.

Key technologies: C++/C, CMake, FreeRTOS, gtest/gmock, Python.

This role forms part of the team that underpins Ocado Technology's technical focus, driving technical excellence and being a key contributor to your team and department’s delivery. In this role, you will be a go-to person in your team, with deep expertise, strong problem solving and knowledge sharing. You’ll be working with others to find great solutions and taking an active role in technical decision making across your team and department.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

Leading & Influencing:

• Contribute significantly to setting technical direction.
• Develop other engineers around you into more capable and experienced people.
• Provide mentorship and coaching for others across your department on technical craft.
• Apply good strategic judgement in supporting architectural decision making.
• Responsible for your personal delivery towards team goals.
• Collaborate with Product to understand the customer needs well and find ways to meet them within the given technical constraints.
• Go-to person for your specialism or domain, within your department.
• Manage upwards effectively, ensuring Team Leader / Product Manager or Engineering Manager are informed of progress, celebrate team successes and make key risks visible.
• Actively build good relationships and trust between the team and other stakeholders, embedding a ‘one Ocado’ approach.
• Actively supports recruitment through technical interviewing or other activities (eg. external PR & events)

Design for Future

Structure and document code in a manner that supports functional safety, self-test, and diagnostics suitable for use in an industrial robot

• Make consistently good decisions on design, taking into account the business, technical and economic context.
• Support other teams to find ways to solve their problems.
• Guide design activities and communicate outcomes effectively.
• Apply breadth or depth of experience to prepare your department for future endeavours.
• Look for multiple ways to solve problems and communicate effectively the benefits and drawbacks of each.
• Demonstrate a sound understanding of the technology that your team are working on & are able to act as a proxy for other stakeholders, where technical expertise is needed.

Deliver for Today

• Actively contribute to the delivery of value with appropriate timeliness and quality.
• Participate in the full delivery lifecycle, from technical discovery to value validation, mentoring others at each stage.
• Actively look for incremental ways to enhance value.
• Help build clarity in the area about the technical strategy and support its implementation
• Help the team resolve difficult engineering problems through effective collaboration and guidance.
• Measurably reduces waste in the ways of working within your department.
• Identify which data is important to measure about your Product implementation. Extract, gather and present this data effectively to support future design, delivery and operation.

Execute with Quality

• Pursue technical excellence with the economic constraints taken into account, with appropriate quality and security in mind.
• Ensure that your department’s practices are informed by industry best practice.
• Identify and mitigate risks to delivery, including consistent application of high quality testing.
• Champion security awareness across your department. Implement or direct security related work at the team level as appropriate.
• Make sure your Product’s implementation can be diagnostically analysed, where practical, building in observability, in order to resolve faults and be maintainable.

Support

• Deliver solutions to ongoing support queries.
• Provide 1st and 2nd line Product support with a high level of autonomy in critical situations.
• Reduce manual support through process and/or Product improvement.
• Participate in out of hours support rota where agreed.

This role may be required to perform tasks as required by management deemed as a reasonable request. This role description is a summary of the typical functions of the role, not an exhaustive or comprehensive list of possible role responsibilities, tasks and duties.

Key Experience:

• Recent and relevant experience in firmware or embedded software development in a team environment.
• Experience of developing software in large codebases, including testing methodologies.
• Expertise in developing firmware for Arm Cortex microcontrollers.
• Full product lifecycle development experience from concept, prototype, development, and sustaining
• Experience using Agile methodologies.
• Basic proficiency in electronics, including interpretation of schematics to support diagnosis of issues and debugging.
• Computer Science, Software Engineering, or similar Technology degree.
• Strong verbal and written communication in English.

Additional experience in the following would be an advantage:

• Development of software in a real-time operating system framework such as FreeRTOS.
• Use of different communications protocols such as CAN, SPI, I2c, Ethernet.
• Familiarity with electronics lab tools such as oscilloscopes, power supplies, soldering irons, etc
• Working knowledge of safety standards IEC 61508 or ISO 13849

Benefits

Our employee benefits are designed for you. We care about people and we've ensured we have a wealth of benefits that focus on your well-being. We regularly review our benefits to ensure we are supporting our employees appropriately. Currently, we offer technically stretching work, a competitive salary and:

• A hybrid working policy that sees you in the office typically 40% of your time.
• 30 days 'working from anywhere' policy
• Private Medical Insurance
• Meal tickets
• Wellbeing support through Apps such as Unmind and an Employee Assistance Programme
• Opportunity to participate in share schemes

We also have regular divisional socials, sports clubs not to mention the Ocado Technology Academy for a packed schedule of courses, conferences and events. If you think you have what it takes to make a difference, please submit your application below.

#LI-GN1 #LI-HYBRID #LI-OT