---
title: 'Firmware Engineer at Mill'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/firmware-engineer-mill-san-bruno-gf02ngvr64jy'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-25'
---

# Firmware Engineer at Mill

- **Company:** Mill
- **Location:** San Bruno, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-09-23
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-25
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/mill/jobs/4737190005

## Job description

Mill is a waste prevention technology company reimagining what it means to eliminate waste, starting with food. We build smart systems and infrastructure for homes, businesses, and municipalities that transform food scraps from landfill-bound waste into valuable resources, including chicken feed. Tens of thousands of Mill’s residential food recyclers are already helping households divert millions of pounds of food scraps every year, paving the way for our upcoming launch of Mill Commercial—the industry’s first end-to-end solution for managing, understanding, and preventing food waste in commercial environments (e.g. grocery, restaurants, food services). At Mill, we are passionate about building easy-to-use, beautifully designed technologies that keep food in the food system and out of landfills.

As a Firmware Engineer at Mill, you’ll be working with a small dynamic team on a novel product. Your day-to-day will include hands-on work with hardware components and lab equipment as well as production code. Since we’re a small team, your work and learning will span Development, Testing, and Debug as we push towards launch. This role is for someone who wants to learn and be creatively challenged.

## Responsibilities

- Work closely with the Mill cross functional team on the embedded software and hardware validation of new products.
- Writing, testing, and reviewing new embedded code to run on our systems and exploring new ways to control our system.
- Hands-on support debugging systems during commissioning and supporting testing activities by working with electrical engineers and product designers to troubleshoot and drive system level performance.
- Implementing prototype drivers and testing on hardware systems.

## Minimum Qualifications

- BS, MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering (obtained)
- 1-3 years professional experience in embedded software development
- Ability to work 3-5 days a week in office at our San Bruno location
- Experience writing, testing, and debugging embedded C to control electromechanical components and read sensors
- Strong analytical and communication skills

## Preferred Qualifications

- Experience with embedded Linux systems: Yocto preferred
- Experience debugging physical hardware using oscilloscopes, network/logic analyzers
- Past experience developing for loadcells, DC motors, PID controllers, DC fans
- Experience with python scripting
- Experience with Hardware-in-the-Loop testing platforms
- Experience working with CI/CD pipelines for production code

The estimated base salary range for this position is $185K-210K, which does not include the value of benefits or a potential equity grant. A wide range of factors are considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to skill sets, market conditions, experience and training, licensure and certifications, and business and organizational needs. At Mill, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role.

## About Mill

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Mill makes it easy to keep food out of landfills with innovative, odorless food recycling solutions for homes, workplaces, and cities.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C)
- **Headquarters**: San Bruno, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2020
- **Founders**: Not publicly available (founded by a team from Nest Labs / Google, though specific names are not widely publicized)

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Environmental Services / Consumer Hardware & Software
- Target customers: B2C (homeowners), B2B (grocery and food service partners via Mill Commercial)
- Mission: To eliminate waste for good, starting with the food that ends up in landfills. The goal is to turn kitchen scraps into food for chickens, keeping food in the food system and out of landfills.

## Products & Services
- **Mill Food Recycler (Home)**: An odorless, effortless food recycling bin for the home. It uses intelligent tech to dehydrate and reduce food volume by 80% overnight. Users do not need to press a button; the device senses how much is added. The resulting grounds are shipped to Mill's small-farm partners for use as chicken feed. Type: Consumer Hardware + Service (subscription).
- **Mill Commercial**: A new solution for grocery stores and food service businesses to manage food waste at scale, leveraging the same core technology. Type: B2B Hardware + Service.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Total Funding**: $170.8M across 6 rounds [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill)
- **Key Metric**: 21,000,000+ pounds of food kept out of landfills [mill.com](https://www.mill.com/)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Prelude Ventures (led Series C), Climate Pledge Fund (Amazon), and others [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill)
- **Growth Signals**: 110 total employees [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/mill) (LinkedIn reports 548, likely including contractors/partners) [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill); 14 active job postings as of mid-2026; launch of Mill Commercial; headcount growth of +0.4% monthly [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Hardware + Software Moat**: The combination of a custom hardware appliance, embedded firmware, and a computer vision AI engine creates a difficult-to-replicate system.
- **Network Effect**: The more users Mill has, the more food waste is diverted, strengthening their supply chain of grounds for chicken feed and their partnerships with farms.
- **Brand & Design**: A strong focus on industrial design and user experience (odorless, effortless, beautiful) differentiates it from compost pails and garbage disposals.
- **Climate Impact**: Directly addresses methane emissions from landfills (methane is 80x more potent than CO2), giving it a strong mission-driven narrative.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling the Home Business**: Expanding the subscriber base for the home food recycler.
- **Launching Mill Commercial**: Entering the B2B market with grocery and food service partners to capture waste upstream.
- **International Expansion**: Likely future focus, given the global scale of food waste.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-Driven**: Employees are directly working on climate change, keeping food out of landfills.
- **Hybrid Work**: Hybrid work environment (typical time on-site: 2 days a week) [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/mill).
- **Culture**: Described as a mix of hardware, software, and AI engineering with a startup feel. Offers company equity, 401(K), generous parental leave, free snacks, and company-sponsored family events [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/mill).
- **Engineering Focus**: Heavy investment in hardware engineering (San Bruno) and software/AI (Computer Vision). Roles include Hardware Test Engineer, Senior Firmware Engineer, AI Engineer (Computer Vision), and Product Design Engineer [greenhouse.io](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/Mill).
- **Employee Rating**: 3.4/5.0 on LinkedIn (23 reviews), with Culture rated 3.7 and Compensation rated 3.6 [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill).

## Sources
1. [mill.com](https://www.mill.com/)
2. [greenhouse.io](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/Mill)
3. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/mill)
4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill)

## Other roles at Mill

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- [Computer Vision, Fall/Winter 2026](https://feeny.ai/job/computer-vision-fall-winter-2026-mill-san-bruno-792bavbv5g37) — San Bruno, CA
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