---
title: 'Senior Embedded Software Engineer at OLIX'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-embedded-software-engineer-olix-london-frfsaxgb8nk5'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-25'
---

# Senior Embedded Software Engineer at OLIX

- **Company:** OLIX
- **Location:** London, United Kingdom
- **Compensation:** £210k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-10-20
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-25
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/olix/af4f522f-4d02-4325-94a0-04bba179a252

## Job description

## About OLIX

AI is growing faster than any technology in history and the explosion in demand has created a massive infrastructure gap; we can no longer build chips or power stations fast enough to keep up. The industry is still leaning on a ten-year-old hardware blueprint that has reached its limit. A new paradigm that is faster and more efficient will be the biggest economic opportunity of the next century and create the most important company of the next decade. The OLIX Decode Accelerator 1 (DX-1) is the first accelerator architected specifically for decode. Rack-scale co-design of logic, data movement, packaging, optics and interconnect enables a step change in system level performance.

## The Role

As a Senior Embedded Software Engineer, you will own a component of the DX-1 platform firmware end to end, from simulation through FPGA prototypes and first silicon into production. The Embedded team builds the software that makes the platform bootable, manageable and observable: boot and update, platform management on the BMC, embedded Linux on the platform processors, real-time firmware on resource-constrained cores, and register-level control of the ASIC.

The kind of work you would own: the Linux image and update flow for a platform processor, management-plane services that collect telemetry over PLDM and expose it over Redfish, bare-metal firmware on the cores beside the ASIC, or precision-timing integration. You will join a team of senior engineers, reporting to the Platform Architect who leads the team, and work closely with the FPGA, ASIC and Systems Software teams. Much of the work is pre-silicon, developed against simulation, FPGA prototypes and hardware-in-the-loop rigs.

## Responsibilities

- Own a subsystem end to end. Design it, implement it, test it against simulation and on the hardware-in-the-loop rigs, support its bring-up on real hardware, and carry it into production, within interface specifications you help write.
- Work across the stack as needed. Boot firmware, Linux kernel and drivers, management-plane services, and bare-metal code on constrained cores, in C/C++ and Python.
- Test what you build. Firmware tests that run in the existing hardware-in-the-loop infrastructure, bench scripts that make a failure reproducible, and contributions to device models.
- Anticipate problems and finish things. Flag a risk before it blocks someone, and see your work through until it is in use.
- Lead an initiative when it takes more than one engineer. Frame the problem, split the work, and keep the FPGA or Systems Software counterparts it depends on aligned on scope and interfaces.
- Set the standard by example. Review others' work and have yours reviewed, document what you learn so the team does not relearn it, and say so when the plan is wrong.

## Skills & Experience

- Strong C on bare metal and C/C++ on Linux. Depth in either bare-metal/RTOS firmware on resource-constrained cores or Linux kernel and driver development, with working competence in the other.
- Systems fundamentals. Interrupt design, synchronisation with and without atomics, memory ordering, cache maintenance for shared memory and DMA buffers, and fitting a design into fixed memory and timing budgets.
- Shipped firmware on real hardware and debugged it at the bench with an oscilloscope, logic analyser, JTAG and serial console. Bring-up of a new board, or firmware for an FPGA-prototyped ASIC, is a significant advantage.
- Embedded Linux platform work, or clear exposure to it. Yocto/OpenEmbedded or similar, U-Boot or UEFI, and device tree. An update flow that recovers from a failed update is an advantage.
- Test discipline. You have written software-in-the-loop tests against device models, or hardware-in-the-loop tests, for firmware you owned.
- A subsystem you owned from design to production. We will want to hear about it end to end: the interfaces you agreed with the adjacent teams, what broke, and what you did about it.
- Also useful: platform management, precision timing, FPGA soft cores. OpenBMC, Redfish, PLDM over MCTP, I2C/SMBus/PMBus; IEEE 1588 PTP or SyncE; soft-core targets in FPGA fabric; accelerator or data-centre hardware.

## Compensation & Equity

- Competitive Salary: Commensurate with your experience, skills, and location
- Equity & Ownership: Meaningful stock options. You’re not just joining the mission; you’re owning a piece of it
- Proximity Bonus: We value your time. To minimise your commute and maximise your life, we offer an annual Living-Local Bonus if your residence is within 20 minutes of the office
- Retirement Benefits: Employer-contributed retirement plans to help you build long-term financial security.

Due to U.S. export control regulations, candidates’ eligibility to work at OLIX depends on their most recent citizenship or permanent residency status. We are generally unable to consider applicants whose most recent citizenship or permanent residence is in certain restricted countries (currently including Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Russia, Belarus, China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Venezuela). Applicants who have subsequently obtained citizenship or permanent residency in another country not subject to these restrictions may still be eligible.

## About OLIX

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: OLIX, formerly known as Flux, is building a new compute paradigm using an SRAM-architecture integrated with photonics to solve the fundamental memory, energy, and speed constraints in deploying frontier AI.
- **Entity Type**: Private, Series A (raised $220M in February 2026)
- **Headquarters**: London, United Kingdom
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: James Dacombe (CEO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Semiconductor Manufacturing, AI Infrastructure, Photonic Computing
- **Target customers**: Enterprise AI labs, hyperscalers, and frontier AI model developers requiring high-throughput, low-latency compute
- **Mission or purpose statement**: "Solving the most consequential problem in the deployment of frontier AI" by building infrastructure that overcomes the limits of current GPU-based memory architecture.

## Products & Services
- **OLIX Compute Platform**: A new hardware architecture combining SRAM-based compute with integrated photonics, designed to surpass HBM-based systems on throughput per megawatt and total cost of ownership (TCO), while delivering significantly better interactivity and latency than silicon-only SRAM architectures.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Unicorn status; estimated $1–2.5B (latest round Feb 2026, per Dealroom)
- **Key Metric**: $220M in total funding (Series A, led by Hummingbird Ventures, with participation from Crane Venture Partners and others)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Hummingbird Ventures (Series A lead), Crane Venture Partners (pre-seed lead), and 4+ additional investors across seed and Series A rounds.
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 420% YoY to 70 employees; operating in 6 countries (UK, US, Canada, Armenia, Romania, Germany); active job postings surged 188.9% YoY with 26 open roles as of mid-2026.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Unique photonic-SRAM architecture**: A contrarian bet that GPU-based approaches cannot simultaneously deliver high throughput and high interactivity at low cost due to physical design constraints.
- **Talent density**: Heavy hiring from top compute and AI companies (Apple, Amazon, Arm, Google, Tenstorrent).
- **First-mover in inference-era compute**: Targeting a fundamental bottleneck as frontier models require vastly more tokens per inference.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale teams**: Aggressively hiring across engineering (ASIC/photonic design, FPGA, optics, process integration), operations, and legal in London, Austin, Toronto, Bristol, and San Francisco.
- **Prototype and productize**: Moving from architecture conception into hardware integration and manufacturing (roles include Process Integration Engineer, Opto-Mechanical Engineer, Layout Engineering Manager).
- **Transition from Flux branding**: Rebranded to OLIX in January 2026 to signal a new phase of company identity and scale.

## Why Work Here
- **In-person culture**: OLIX is an in-person company. They incentivize living within a 20-minute commute of the office with a £24,000 annual living-local bonus.
- **Compensation**: Benchmark-leading base salary, meaningful stock options (early employees build significant ownership), and workplace pension.
- **Benefits**: Comprehensive BUPA medical & dental (with Medical History Disregarded), 25 days holiday + UK bank holidays + birthday leave, meals on-site, cycle-to-work scheme, nursery scheme, visa sponsorship and relocation support.
- **Engineering environment**: M4 Mac standard (M5 Pro upgrade for engineering), on-site 3D-printing lab, noise-cancelling headphones, fully ergonomic workstation, and a culture of deep focus.
- **Impact**: "You will work with some of the best minds in photonics, systems, and compute on one of the defining problems of our era."

## Sources
1. [olix.com](https://olix.com/)
2. [olix.com/careers](https://olix.com/careers)
3. [LinkedIn - OLIX](https://www.linkedin.com/company/olix-computing)
4. [Dealroom - OLIX](https://dealroom.co/companies/olix-1/)
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/olix](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/olix)

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