Platform Firmware Engineer, SI Data Center

What to Expect

Tesla’s AI Hardware team builds the custom silicon and datacenter infrastructure behind Full Self-Driving, Optimus, and some of the largest AI training clusters in the world. Every GPU, every custom accelerator, and every server in these clusters depends on PCIe as the critical high-speed interconnect linking compute, memory, networking, and storage. As we push toward PCIe Gen 5 and Gen 6—and scale the platforms that will help close the gap to terawatt-class AI compute for Optimus, Cybercab, and future orbital systems—the firmware and driver stack must deliver maximum bandwidth, minimal latency, and rock-solid reliability at massive scale.

You will own the firmware and Linux driver stack for these AI compute platforms. You will develop, optimize, and validate PCIe subsystems across custom So Cs, GPUs, and dense datacenter hardware so our interconnect infrastructure keeps pace with next-generation AI workloads.

What You’ll Do

• Develop and optimize PCIe Gen 5/Gen 6 firmware and Linux kernel drivers for Tesla’s AI compute platforms
• Implement PCIe enumeration, link training, and configuration for custom So Cs and accelerator cards
• Bring up proto hardware and develop proof-of-concept firmware to validate new platform designs before production
• Build and run platform-level validation—PCIe performance, thermal, power, and stress testing across the full compute stack under real AI training and inference workloads
• Debug PCIe link failures, signal integrity issues, and protocol errors using analyzers and silicon debug tools
• Develop Linux device drivers for custom hardware—DMA, interrupts, MMIO, and peer-to-peer transfers
• Drive root-cause analysis of PCIe failures across firmware, kernel, and hardware boundaries

What You’ll Bring

• Degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent experience
• 4+ years in firmware or low-level software development with a preferred focus on PCIe
• Deep knowledge of PCIe Gen 4/5/6 architecture—link training, transaction layer, and configuration space
• Linux kernel driver development experience—device drivers, DMA, interrupts
• Platform validation and performance testing experience covering PCIe, thermal, power, and system-level stress
• Strong C programming skills and familiarity with kernel debug tools (ftrace, perf, crash)
• Hands-on hardware debug experience—protocol analyzers, JTAG, oscilloscopes
• Solid understanding of system architecture fundamentals—IOMMU, NUMA, memory hierarchies