Embedded Firmware Engineer

Location: Ottawa, ON (on-site) Employment type: Full-time Salary range: $95,000 – $130,000 CAD per year About Q-Block Computing: Q-Block Computing builds quantum systems that operate in the real world. The company develops quantum timing, quantum-secure communications, and quantum computing platforms engineered for the performance, reliability, and environmental resilience that mission-critical applications demand — systems designed to be deployed, maintained, and trusted by operators who cannot afford ambiguity about whether the technology works. The long-term vision is deeper than any single platform. Q-Block is pursuing a mission to decode Nature's foundational model — to build instruments of sufficient precision and coherence that they become tools for understanding the physical universe at its most fundamental level. Every system engineered to sustain quantum coherence under real-world conditions is also an advance in what becomes scientifically possible next. Commercialization and science reinforce each other by design. About this role: The Embedded Firmware Engineer will develop the real-time control firmware that sits at the heart of Q-Block's quantum hardware platforms — the code that turns precision electronics into coordinated, deterministic, trustworthy instruments. The work spans peripheral drivers, DMA and interrupt architectures, digital control loops, and multi-unit synchronization, all on ARM Cortex-M-based platforms designed to be built, qualified, and deployed. The successful candidate is an embedded engineer who is genuinely comfortable at the hardware–firmware boundary, reads datasheets and schematics as a matter of course, and finds satisfaction in firmware that is correct on the bench and correct in the field. The role reports into the Senior Embedded Systems Architect and the Technical Lead, and offers substantial room to grow within a small, high-caliber engineering team. Responsibilities Design, write, test, and maintain embedded firmware modules in C/C++ for ARM Cortex-M microcontroller platforms used across Q-Block's quantum hardware. Implement and validate peripheral device drivers for precision analog and digital ICs over SPI, I2C, UART, and related interfaces. Develop DMA transfer configurations, GPIO management routines, and interrupt service routines to achieve deterministic, low-latency I/O timing. Implement digital control loop modules and other real-time signal handling functions based on system-level requirements. Integrate and test firmware across multiple interconnected control units operating as a synchronized system. Contribute to clock distribution, timing synchronization, and coherent multi-unit operation from the firmware side of the stack. Perform bench-level hardware bring-up, debugging, and characterization using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and signal generators. Write clear technical documentation for new and updated firmware modules, including test procedures, integration…