§What You'll Do
- Build the agentic systems that let Zealot automatically understand and emulate non-Linux embedded targets, the weird stuff nobody else touches.
- Reverse and rehost firmware from niche, obscure, and unconventional devices: printers, industrial controllers, point-of-sale terminals, calculators, Russian DSPs, smart appliances, and anything else with a chip and a pulse.
- Design workflows that can map boot logic, runtime dependencies, and peripheral stubs for proprietary RTOS and bare-metal environments with little or no documentation.
- Turn the manual art of cracking open strange devices into scalable, AI-driven capability.
§Requirements
- Hands-on reverse engineering experience with non-Linux embedded firmware, VxWorks, ThreadX, FreeRTOS, Nucleus, eCos, QNX, or proprietary/bare-metal environments.
- You've popped open devices most people would never think to look at, and you enjoyed it.
- Strong understanding of embedded boot flows, memory layouts, and peripheral interfaces across diverse architectures.
- Strong C/C++ or Rust skills for low-level systems work.
- Ability to work from zero documentation and rapidly build understanding from raw firmware dumps and runtime behavior.
§Nice to Have
- Experience with QEMU, Unicorn, or custom emulation harnesses for non-Linux targets.
- Proficiency with tools such as Ghidra, IDA, Binwalk, GDB, and JTAG/SWD debuggers.
- Experience patching firmware and building shims to stub out missing hardware dependencies.
- Familiarity with ARM, MIPS, AArch64, PowerPC, Xtensa, RISC-V, or other embedded architectures.
- Experience with niche device ecosystems, printers (HP, Lexmark, Brother), POS systems, Russian DSPs, building automation, medical devices, or similar.
- Experience building with LLMs and AI agents.
- The kind of person who buys random hardware at a thrift store just to take it apart.
§You Are
- Genuinely excited about the weird corners of embedded, the stranger the device, the more interested you are.
- Clearly interested in stepping away from purely manual research and moving toward the development of AI systems.
- Building something massive matters more to you than comfort, titles, or predictability.
- You want to be early at a company that will change an industry, and you're ready to do what that actually takes.
For Recruiters
Note to recruiting firms: We want the person who lights up when they encounter a device running a proprietary RTOS nobody has documented. Strong RE fundamentals are the baseline, what sets candidates apart is breadth across weird, non-standard embedded targets and genuine curiosity about niche hardware.
Ready?
Apply for Firmware Emulation Engineer (RTOS/Embedded)
Email team@zealotlabs.com with a resume and a paragraph on what you want to build with us.
Apply now