Senior Power Electronics Firmware Engineer
Company websitetonal.com (Tonal, opens in new tab)
Base salary $170K to $195K
Employer-published annual base salary, USD. Advertised base range in San Francisco, CA
You apply on the employer's own site. Six Figure Work does not handle applications.
- LocationSan Francisco, CA
- WorkplaceWorkplace not stated
- Status at last checkSource accepting applications when checked
- Last checked (1 h ago) · observed since
About this job
Overview
Tonal is looking for a Senior Power Electronics Firmware Engineer to develop the firmware for our motor drive and power systems. That drive generates up to 250 pounds of digital weight, so its firmware defines how Tonal feels to every member. You’ll contribute at every stage, from concept, prototyping, and bring-up through validation and high-volume production.
You’ll join the Firmware team in our Hardware department, working closely with electrical, mechanical, and software engineers. Together, you’ll tackle challenges that span motor control, power conversion, thermal limits, and member safety. Our team offers a rare chance to shape the core technology of a new fitness category.
What You Will Do
Develop and improve motor control and power management firmware that makes Tonal’s digital weight feel smooth and responsive
Add and maintain protection features, such as overcurrent and overtemperature handling, that keep members safe
Bring up and debug new boards in the lab with the electrical team
Test and tune motor performance, and help build the tools and automated tests that validate each release
Support manufacturing test and calibration, and help investigate issues from the field
Work with software, mechanical, and product teams to turn member feedback into firmware improvements
Take part in design and code reviews, and help improve how the team builds and ships firmware
Who You Are
5+ years of embedded firmware development, including 3+ years focused on motor control or power electronics
Expert C development for real-time, resource-constrained systems; experience in C++ and Python is also valuable
Experience developing multithreaded firmware on an RTOS, including scheduling, synchronization, and interrupt handling for timing-critical tasks
Hands-on experience implementing FOC for PMSM/BLDC motors, including current-loop tuning and sensored or sensorless position estimation
Solid power electronics fundamentals: inverters, DC-DC converters, PWM techniques such as SVPWM, gate drivers, current and voltage sensing, and thermal behavior
Experience designing discrete-time control loops, filters, and observers, and modeling them in MATLAB/Simulink or Python
Experience with motor-control MCUs or DSPs (e.g., TI C2000, STM32, NXP) and communication protocols such as CAN, UART, SPI, and I2C
Experience with safety-critical systems, including protection, fault handling, and diagnostics for high-power hardware
Comfortable debugging at the hardware/firmware boundary with oscilloscopes, current and differential probes, power analyzers, and dynamometers
Creative problem solver who isn’t afraid to push boundaries and think differently, with high attention to detail
Great oral and written communication skills
Team player with high integrity and self-awareness, open to feedback and constantly striving to improve
Extra Credit
Experience with functional or appliance safety standards, such as IEC 60730 (Class B software), IEC 60335, IEC 61508, or ISO 26262
Experience managing regenerative energy in motor drives, such as braking resistor control and DC bus regulation
Experience with digitally controlled power conversion, such as PFC or DC-DC stages
Experience with unit testing, software- and hardware-in-the-loop (SIL/HIL) testing, Git, and CI tools such as Jenkins
Experience with EMC/EMI and safety compliance testing for motor drives
Experience with bootloaders and secure over-the-air firmware updates
Experience shipping high-volume consumer hardware
At Tonal, we believe that the unique and varied lived experiences of our teammates contribute to our overall strength. We don’t just appreciate differences, we celebrate them, and we always seek people that represent a wide variety of backgrounds. We’re dedicated to adding new perspectives to the team and designing employee experiences that contribute to your growth as much as you do to ours. If your experience aligns with what we’re looking for (even if you don’t check every single box), send us your application. We would love to hear from you!
Tonal is committed to meeting the diverse needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner that is consistent with the principles of independence, dignity, integration, and equality of opportunity. Should you have any accommodation requests, please reach out to us via our confidential email, [email protected]. All requests will be addressed and responded to in accordance with Tonal’s Accessibility Policy and local legislation.
Source: Tonal on Ashby · View original posting (opens in new tab)
Pay in context
This role's base floor ($170,000) is above 72% of the 2,097 Engineering (non-software) roles in California listed on this site; 31 others list the same floor. Their median floor is $146,200; the middle half runs from $124,000 to $174,000.
Only jobs on this site count, and each one publishes a base salary of $100,000 or more, so this compares six-figure jobs with each other, not with the whole market. Computed Nov 7, 2026.
This listingSenior Power Electronics Firmware Engineer$170K to $195K
Brand Design Lead$150K to $195K
Staff Solutions Architect, Business Systems$200K to $250K
Associate, Strategy & Corporate Development$130K to $160K
Senior Retail Marketing & Retail Partnerships Manager$120K to $155K
Head of People (Senior Director)$220K to $300K
Senior Manager, Software Engineering (Experiences)$230K to $275K
Chart as a table
| Role | Published base |
|---|---|
| Senior Power Electronics Firmware Engineer (this listing) | $170K - $195K |
| Brand Design Lead | $150K - $195K |
| Staff Solutions Architect, Business Systems | $200K - $250K |
| Associate, Strategy & Corporate Development | $130K - $160K |
| Senior Retail Marketing & Retail Partnerships Manager | $120K - $155K |
| Head of People (Senior Director) | $220K - $300K |
| Senior Manager, Software Engineering (Experiences) | $230K - $275K |
Observed changes
- Began meeting the published-salary criteria
- First observed on the employer's board
- Observed since
- Employer-stated posting date
- 2026-11-05
Where this pay comes from
Location as the employer wrote it: San Francisco, CA
USD 170,000 – 195,000 · 1 YEAR · Salary
- Method
- Structured pay field published by the employer
- Checked
- Rule set
- us-base-v2
The employer's job board publishes this pay as a dedicated data field. We read the field directly; no interpretation was needed.
What we verified
- The pay figures come from the employer's own listing, quoted exactly above.
- The pay is an annual base salary in US dollars with a minimum of at least $100,000.
- The role was publicly listed on the employer's job board when last checked.
We do not verify what the employer will actually offer, whether the employer is still recruiting for the role, or anything beyond what the employer published. Full methodology.
