About Rain:
At Rain AI, we’re creating a future with abundant and scalable artificial intelligence. We're building the world’s most cost and energy efficient hardware for AI. Our products achieve an order of magnitude improvement over the status quo by co-designing every layer of the AI stack, from circuits to algorithms. Our ultimate goal is to become the dominant hardware company of the AI era. Rain AI is currently a Series A stage startup and backed by world leaders in AI. Our seed round was led by Sam Altman (OpenAI).
In addition, our current VC partners include Y Combinator, Daniel Gross, Jaan Tallinn, Founders X Fund, Airbus Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures and Deepwater.
About the Role
We're seeking an experienced Firmware Engineer to join our software organization. In this role, you'll develop and optimize firmware—from bootloaders to drivers—to ensure that ML workloads run efficiently on our custom platform. The ideal candidate has deep expertise in embedded systems and operating systems, along with a passion for solving challenges at the hardware-software interface. This is a remote role – you can work from anywhere in the United States.
Responsibilities
- Develop core firmware (bootloaders, secure boot, device drivers) for high-throughput ML platforms
- Optimize scheduling and resource management for ML workload execution on multi-core systems
- Implement RISC-V solutions with RTOS (FreeRTOS, ZephyrOS) for scaled deployments
- Execute platform bring-up, validating complex compute/memory subsystems (e.g. HBM, multi-core control system)
- Debug system-level issues through log analysis and cross-team collaboration
Required Qualifications
- BS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related fields
- Strong background in firmware/embedded development, ideally 5+ years
- Hands-on experience with RTOS implementations on ARM, RISC-V, or x86 architectures
- Experience in platform bring-up with complex SoCs and interfaces (e.g., PCIe, Ethernet, HBM)
- Excellent programming skills in C/C++/Rust
- Experience with multi-core optimization in high-bandwidth systems
- Passion for learning new architectures and optimizing system performance
- Strong communication skills, both written and verbal
- Ability to work successfully in a distributed and remote environment
Preferred Qualifications
- MS or PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related fields
- Familiarity with ML accelerator architectures and dataflow patterns for neural networks
- Contributions to open-source firmware projects, particularly in system optimization
- Experience implementing security features (secure boot, cryptographic protocols, hardware security modules)
- Experience building debug tooling (system monitors, trace analyzers, debug protocol stacks)
Our Benefits:
- Medical Insurance with 100% coverage of employee premiums
- Dental and Vision Insurance
- 401k match
- Unlimited PTO + all federal holidays
- Two weeks off around Christmas and New Years
- Summer “shutdown”: one week-off for all employees
- Work from anywhere in the United States
- $500 of office equipment per year
- And more!
Compensation Range: $220K - $260K
