Nocturnal Inc. Embedded Systems / Firmware Engineer Cambridge, MA · Full time Company website

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At Nocturnal, believe sleep is not a passive state, but an active frontier where technology, data, and insights could converge to improve lives in profound ways. By combining cutting-edge science and design, we are pushing boundaries of what's possible in sleep.

Nocturnal Inc. is building next-generation sleep technologies which augments human health, performance and well-being.

We’re looking for an engineer who can own the hardware–firmware stack end-to-end: from circuit design and sensor integration to low-power firmware, testing, and UX-aware embedded behavior. This is an in person position in Cambridge MA. The ideal candidate has experience taking hardware from prototype through production.

This is a hands-on role with real ownership and impact.

What You’ll Do

• Design and review schematics and PCB layouts for wearable electronics
• Select and integrate sensors (IMU, PPG, temperature, etc.)
• Develop robust, low-power firmware for nRF and/or STM MCUs
• Implement power management strategies (sleep states, battery optimization, energy profiling)
• Write clean, maintainable, well-documented embedded C/C++ code
• Bring up boards, debug hardware/firmware issues, and run validation tests
• Optimize BLE communication for performance and power
• Collaborate on device UX, haptics, indicators, and user interaction flows
• Support manufacturing readiness (DFM, testing procedures, revisions)

Required Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience in embedded systems development
• Strong experience with nRF (Nordic) and/or STM32 platforms
• Proficiency in embedded C/C++
• Solid understanding of low-power design for battery-powered devices
• Experience with BLE and wireless communication
• Ability to design, test, and debug custom PCBs
• Comfortable using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG/SWD debuggers

Nice to Have

• Experience with wearables, medical, or sleep tech devices
• Knowledge of Zephyr RTOS, FreeRTOS, or similar
• Sensor fusion or signal processing experience
• Familiarity with power profiling tools (Nordic Power Profiler, etc.)
• UX-driven embedded behavior (state machines, haptics, LEDs)
• Manufacturing, certification, or regulatory exposure (FCC, CE)

What We Offer

• Work on a cutting-edge sleep wearable with real user impact
• High ownership and technical autonomy
• Competitive salary / contract rate + equity (for full-time)
• Opportunity to shape both the product and engineering culture