Job Highlights

Fleet Robotics is a Harvard University and VC-incubated green-tech startup developing its first product, an underwater robot to inspect and maintain ship hulls. At Fleet, we are looking for an exemplary embedded firmware engineer to lead our embedded software development. Challenges include designing robust, real-time control systems for underwater navigation, sensor integration, and autonomous operation in challenging marine environments. The ideal candidate has experience developing production-grade embedded firmware, implementing real-time control systems, and optimizing code for resource-constrained environments. Experience with underwater robotics, sensor interfacing, and communication protocols is highly valued. As one of the company's pivotal employees, this role offers the ability to make significant contributions to a novel and meaningful environmental application working with a small, close-knit, and fast-paced team.

Meaningful and Impactful

We are tackling a thousand-year-old problem: the growth of biofouling on ships. Biofouling is the growth of microorganisms, algae, barnacles, and larger ocean organisms on the ship’s hull. As the ship delivers our goods around the world, the growth of these organisms significantly increases the drag forces on the ship and in doing so, significantly increases fuel consumption. Ships are the world’s largest consumers of carbon-heavy fuels (called bunker fuels). A covering of biofouling just half a millimeter thick can increase emissions up to 30%, which translates to multiple tons of bunker fuel per day, per ship.

Conventionally, the commercial shipping industry handles biofouling in two ways: preventatively, by coating the ship’s hull in a highly toxic paint that discourages growth, and reactively, by stopping operations every 6-months or so to have divers scrape off years of fouling that grows anyway (not to mention scraping off the toxic paint). We think this is akin to deciding never to brush your teeth because you go to the dentist every five years. There is a better way.

Our small autonomous swarm of robots lives on the side of the ship hull for years, gently removing the earliest stage of biofouling on a weekly basis. This early-stage biofouling is easy-to-remove slime. The technical challenge lies in having a robot that can withstand the harsh environments of adhering to the ship hull while the ship is underway, underwater, anywhere in the world - totally autonomously. By removing slime often and early, we prevent the growth of macrofouling, significantly reduce fuel consumption, and prevent the spread of invasive species from port to port. Eventually, we aim for our robots to eliminate the need for toxic anti-fouling paints entirely.

Your Role

You will spearhead the development of all embedded firmware for the robot control, working at the intersection of control systems and sensing. As the technical lead responsible for developing and maintaining the embedded firmware, you will work directly with the electrical and autonomy teams to design our next generation of robot platforms that meet the needs of customers. Our fleet of robots must use coordinated planning and real-time decision-making to combat the dynamic and uncontrolled environment that is present on ship fulls. Candidates must be able to develop robust firmware to control robot motion and behaviors along with consistent data collection to supply to the complex path-planning and autonomy software. The side of a ship provides unique challenges that require novel solutions for sensing the robot and its environment, along with needing reliable control over all robot motion. Some of these challenges include dealing with harsh and irregular environmental conditions, utilizing limited or varying sensor data, lack of communication while underwater, near-zero visibility, and many others. This challenging but rewarding environment creates an opportunity where creative problem-solving and critical thinking are crucial to success.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement embedded firmware for STM32-based systems
• Create and maintain custom CAN-based communication protocols for robot control and sensor data collection
• Develop organized firmware for all robot component control and sensing, interfacing directly with motion planning algorithms, localization, and recovery systems
• Act as the technical authority for firmware design across all platforms
• Develop robust and comprehensive testing frameworks for firmware validation
• Collaborate with mechanical, electrical, and software autonomy teams to ensure proper system integration
• Maintain and improve existing codebases
• Mentor co-ops and interns for career, skill, and personal development.
  
  

Required Skills

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineer, or related field
• 4+ years of experience in embedded systems development
• Significant experience working with electromechanical or robotics systems
• Expert C and C++ programming skills, with an emphasis on embedded systems concepts
• Deep understanding of control theory, including: motor control algorithms, state space modeling, model predictive control, and PID/PIDF controllers
• Extensive experience with different serial communication protocols: I2C, SPI, UART/USART, CAN (CANopen, NMEA 2000, custom)
• Exposure to both bare-metal and RTOS (FreeRTOS or similar)
• Knowledge of DMA, interrupt handling, and bootloader development
• Experience with Git version control, embedded debugging (JTAG/SWD), logic analyzers, oscilloscopes
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Self-motivated and able to work independently in a fast-paced, startup environment
  
  

Everyone’s background is different. We are committed to fostering an environment with diverse experiences, ideas, and backgrounds. Diversity includes not only race and gender identity, but also sexual orientation, religion, and disability status. We are deliberate and self-reflective about the kind of team culture that we are building, seeking engineers who are not only strong in their own aptitudes but who care deeply about supporting each other's growth. If you are excited by the ability to develop novel robots and solve challenges, then we encourage you to apply.

About Fleet Robotics

Fleet Robotics grew out of the Harvard Microrobotics lab, incubated by Material Impact and Harvard University. We have a core team of roboticists who have designed robots for use in underwater inspection and navigation, and who were the world’s first to deploy tracking tags to sperm whales with autonomous drones. We are a passionate team that cares deeply about solving significant environmental and ocean-based problems with cutting-edge robotics.