Role & responsibilities

Role Summary

We are looking for a hands-on IoT Hardware & Firmware Product Engineer to own the technical bridge between customer requirements and our product line of IoT-level sensors, pump controllers, solenoid valves, and water meters. This person will understand hardware components and board-level design, work through the firmware/BSP layer, run rapid proof-of-concepts independently, and collaborate with external vendors and internal teams to design end-to-end products that are cost-effective and scalable to high production volumes.

Key Responsibilities

- Requirements & Use-Case Discovery: Engage directly with customers and internal stakeholders to translate field/use-case requirements into explicit, testable technical specifications.
- Proof-of-Concept Ownership: Independently build rapid proof-of-concepts using dev kits (Arduino, ESP32, STM32, etc.) and off-the-shelf sensors/modules to validate use cases before committing to custom hardware.
- Hardware Component Evaluation: Evaluate and select sensors, actuators (solenoid valves, pump drivers), power systems, and connectivity modules (LoRa, NB-IoT, GSM/4G, BLE) suited to field deployment conditions.
- Firmware & BSP Development: Own or closely guide board bring-up, driver development (I2C/SPI/UART/analog), and BSP-level firmware; work with RTOS or bare-metal firmware for sensing and actuation logic.
- Embedded Systems Design: Design edge logic (calibration, threshold-based actuation, fail-safe behavior), OTA update strategy, and communication resilience for intermittent-connectivity field environments.
- Vendor Sourcing & Management: Identify, evaluate, and negotiate with component and module vendors; read and critically compare datasheets for cost, power, accuracy, and lead-time trade-offs.
- End-to-End Product Design: Partner with PCB design, mechanical/enclosure,



and contract manufacturing vendors to take a validated PoC to a production-ready, cost-optimized, IP-rated product.
- Cost & Scale Optimization: Make explicit cost-vs-performance trade-off calls (BOM cost, battery life, connectivity range, accuracy) with production-volume economics in mind.
- Cross-functional Collaboration: Work cross-functionally with product management, QA, and manufacturing to ensure designs are testable, certifiable (IP rating, EMI/EMC, regional certifications), and scalable.

Required Skills & Experience

Hardware Fundamentals

Working knowledge of sensors (flow, pressure, level, moisture) and actuators (solenoid valves, pump/motor drivers).

Ability to read schematics and BOMs; can evaluate a vendor's reference design without being the PCB designer.

Power system design/sizing for field-deployed, battery or solar-powered devices.

– Awareness of enclosure/mechanical basics and IP-rating requirements for outdoor/underground deployment.

– Familiarity with certification requirements (BIS/CE/FCC, IP ratings) sufficient to brief vendors correctly.

Firmware & Embedded Software

– Board support package (BSP) level experience — board bring-up, driver development over I2C/SPI/UART/analog, bootloader fundamentals.

– Firmware development using RTOS (e.g., FreeRTOS) or bare-metal, including power management (sleep/wake states).

– Experience integrating communication stacks such as MQTT/CoAP over LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, or GSM,



including offline buffering and reconnection logic.

– Understanding of basic embedded security: secure boot, firmware signing, device provisioning.

Product & Systems Thinking

– Proven ability to convert ambiguous customer requirements into a concrete technical spec.

– Comfortable owning cost/performance/reliability trade-off decisions independently.

– Understands design-for-cost-at-scale (BOM sensitivity at production volumes, not just prototype volumes).

Vendor & Sourcing Experience

– Comfortable evaluating and negotiating with component/module vendors (e.g., connectivity module suppliers, sensor manufacturers).

– Some exposure to design-for-manufacturing (DFM) discussions with contract manufacturers or EMS partners.

Hands-on Prototyping

– Demonstrated ability to independently build and demo a working PoC (e.g., Arduino/ESP32 + sensors) within days, not months.

– Comfortable iterating on breadboard/dev-kit setups before committing to custom PCB design.

Preferred / Nice to Have

- Prior experience in an early-stage hardware startup or hardware product incubation environment.
- Domain exposure to agritech, water/utility management, or irrigation/flow-control systems.
- Experience taking a product from PoC through pilot to production at meaningful volumes (1,000+ units).
- Familiarity with PCB layout tools (KiCad/Altium) sufficient to review, even if not personally laying out boards.

What Success Looks Like in the First 6 Months

- Independently scoped and validated at least one new customer use case via a working PoC.
- Established relationships with 2–3 component/module vendors relevant to the product line.
- Contributed to at least one design decision that measurably reduced BOM cost or improved scalability for a product at volume.

📌 Product Engineer (Maharashtra)
🏢 Planetsmartcity Service
📍 Maharashtra