Software Engineer
Summary
Own a Rust codebase powering BLE communication between brake controllers, handheld devices, and a React Native mobile app on ESP32-C6 firmware, focusing on integration, protocol versioning, and hardware debugging.
Salary: $120,000 – $150,000 per year + Super
About the role
This role owns the Rust codebase that devices communicate through. Brake controllers, a handheld dial, and new products in development all communicate with each other and with a mobile app over a protocol library built and maintained in-house. The firmware is Rust on ESP32-C6; the same library compiles into the phone app through FFI. You would be taking over a mature codebase from a remote engineer who has been its primary author, with a handover period and their support while you come up to speed. Some products are shipping, some are close, and a lot of what remains is integration - making the pieces we have built actually work together, on real hardware, every time.
Key responsibilities
Own the in-house Rust protocol library: the schema DSL and macros that generate typed BLE APIs from a single device definition, the embedded and desktop/mobile backends behind them, and its releases to the private registry.
Own the device firmware: brake controller and dial run Rust on ESP32-C6 under ESP-IDF, covering BLE services, over-the-air update, on-device logging and persistent configuration.
Own the Rust-to-mobile boundary - the FFI layer that puts the same library inside the React Native app - along with the desktop and diagnostic tooling the team uses daily.
Version the protocol so that it stays compatible. Firmware in the field and an app already installed have to keep working when the schema moves.
Take new products from definition to shipping, and finish the ones already in progress. Most of the remaining work across the range is integration.
Set the engineering standard: architecture decisions, code review, test coverage, and the build and release tooling everyone else depends on.
Debug against physical hardware, including hardware-in-the-loop testing and BLE behaviour across iOS and Android.
About you
Experience with professional software development, at a level where you have owned a substantial codebase and been accountable for its direction.
A systems programming background - C, C++, Zig or similar - with a real understanding of memory, concurrency and the cost of an abstraction.
Embedded experience: firmware on a microcontroller, debugged against physical hardware.
Rust is what the codebase is written in. Prior Rust experience is a significant advantage, but genuine interest in working in it daily is what is required.
The judgement to work on a codebase you did not write: reading before rewriting, and knowing which of the two a given problem calls for.
Willingness to review and mentor. You would be the most senior software engineer in the room.
Nice to have: Rust in production, particularly async, trait design, and procedural macros.
Nice to have: BLE at protocol level: GATT, pairing and bonding, MTU negotiation, connection intervals.
Nice to have: ESP-IDF, or another embedded RTOS.
Nice to have: Cross-language bindings or FFI work, particularly into mobile.
About us
Aston Dynamics builds brake-by-wire systems for trailers and autonomous vehicles. The electric-over-hydraulic (EoH) platform replaces conventional pneumatic and mechanical trailer braking with electronically controlled hydraulic actuation, giving faster, more precise, independently controllable braking. The team is small and growing with R&D focus. The firmware, electronics and mechanical engineers who build the hardware sit in the same office, and control systems work is owned in-house.