Senior Firmware Engineer

About Cala

At Cala, we’re working to free people from the burden of chronic disease. We began by creating the first non-invasive prescription therapy for hand tremor. After years of careful fine-tuning and improvements, we released Cala kIQ — our most sophisticated therapy yet. Our products have empowered thousands of people to get back to their lives with confidence and ease.

But we won’t stop there. Our pioneering technology can be applied across neurology, cardiology, and so much more. It’s all part of our mission to help people in their struggle with chronic disease. We’re only just getting started.

The Opportunity

Cala is seeking a Senior Firmware Engineer to join our growing team. The role will work with an experienced product development team and be responsible for new design, development, testing, and driving continuous improvements for our revolutionary health products.

This is a versatile, hands-on role where adaptability and cross-functional collaboration are key. You will work on the full stack, from hardware support to the application itself, on low-power, wearable embedded systems. You will thrive if you enjoy wearing many hats, switching gears as needed between developing features for our commercial therapies, leading development on new product initiatives, and supporting the team as needed to push initiatives over the finish line, including writing and executing tests, supporting compliance testing, and owning firmware documentation.

The Senior Firmware Engineer will report to the Engineering Manager and will not have direct reports.

Location: Onsite Hybrid (San Mateo, CA)

The compensation range for this role is market driven, with a salary range of $125,000 - $175,000. Additionally, we offer a robust benefits package. This offering is aligned with our overall compensation philosophy. 

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Cala will not sponsor applicants for work visas.

Specific Responsibilities:

• Full-Stack Firmware Design & Development: Drive firmware development for both new product initiatives and maintenance of existing commercial fleets, willing to jump into any part of the stack where the team needs help.


• Hardware Support: Provide development support for hardware and peripherals, including sensors, flash memory, and wireless communication.


• Design Controls & Compliance: Contribute to, and drive when necessary, the medical device design controls and documentation, viewing these as a critical component of product quality and safety (risk analysis, requirements, test plans/reports, etc.).


• Testing & Validation: Lead firmware testing efforts as required, support compliance testing, and perform joint hardware/FW debugging.


• Optimization: Implement data processing algorithms efficiently and optimize code for low-power applications.


• AI Integration & Process Improvement: Actively explore and implement new tools, including AI assisted development workflows to accelerate code generation, unit testing, and documentation workflow.

Skills and Experience

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field.


• 5+ years working in firmware applications for wearables and ultra-low-power/small footprint design.


• 2+ years experience developing firmware within a phase-gated ISO13485 medical device quality system.


• Excellent C programming skills and proficiency in Python.


• Experience with bare metal firmware development on microcontrollers such as ARM Cortex M0, M3, M4. Experience developing within various RTOS’s such as Zephyr, Linux, freeRTOS, and comparable systems is a plus.


• Experience with relevant wireless technologies such as BLE, LTE, WiFi


• Comfort with hardware debugging and tools such as logic analyzers, power supplies, and oscilloscopes.


• Familiarity with AI-assisted development & testing tools.


• Excellent communication skills and comfort interfacing across cross-functional teams (product, regulatory, quality, manufacturing, etc.), with a willingness to dive into whatever is needed to support the team.

Cala Health believes our success is based on diversity of people, teams and thinking. We offer all employees the tools, training and mentoring they need to succeed. Our selection process is driven by the key requirements for the role rather than bias or discrimination on the basis of a candidate’s sex, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, non-jobrelated disability/handicap or medical condition, family status, sexual orientation, religion, color, ethnicity, race or any other legally protected classification.