Senior Embedded Linux OS Engineer (IoT)

TL;DR

Senior Embedded Linux OS Engineer (Buildroot/IoT): Enabling, maintaining, and improving Home Assistant OS support across hirify.global hardware products with an accent on Buildroot-based platform development and hardware bring-up. Focus on optimizing OS performance, resolving platform-level issues like kernel panics, and ensuring long-term reliability of smart home devices.

Location: Remote (Europe). Must be based in one of the following countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, or the UK.

Salary: €50,000 – €101,000 (varies by country)

Company

hirify.global is the profitable, independent organization behind Home Assistant, the world's largest open-source smart home platform.

What you will do

• Enable and maintain Home Assistant OS support for hirify.global hardware platforms.
• Perform board bring-up activities, including Buildroot configuration, BSPs, and bootloader setup.
• Optimize operating-system performance, stability, and hardware utilization across devices.
• Investigate and resolve platform-level issues such as boot regressions, driver failures, and kernel panics.
• Collaborate with the Hardware Team and Open Home Foundation to support new hardware platforms.
• Upstream patches to Linux, U-Boot, and Buildroot open-source projects.

Requirements

• Strong experience with embedded Linux, specifically using Buildroot, Yocto, or similar environments.
• Deep understanding of system services, hardware bring-up, and platform reliability.
• Proficiency in C/C++ for lower-level driver work and Python for automation and tooling.
• Ability to read hardware schematics and datasheets.
• Experience with bootloaders, partition layouts, and OTA update systems.
• Must be based in one of the listed European countries.

Nice to have

• Contributions to large open-source projects.
• Experience with Elixir, Nerves OS, or the ARM/Raspberry Pi ecosystem.
• Background in building embedded platforms for smart home or IoT products.
• Experience maintaining systems deployed at a large scale across distributed hardware.

Culture & Benefits

• Fully remote organization with a flexible schedule (requires ~3 hours of daily team overlap).
• Five weeks of paid time off and 14 days of paid sick leave.
• Annual budgets for work hardware, smart home equipment, and professional education.
• Yearly performance bonus based on company results.
• Dedicated time (one day every two weeks) to work on personal projects.
• Support for maintaining Home Assistant-related side projects during work hours.

Hiring process

• Application review and initial screening.
• Technical assessment.
• Interview with the Engineering Team.