About Inanimate

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We see a future of Universal Ambient Intelligence.

A future in which our physical world is augmented with agents and capabilities that enhance our human agency.

To get there, we are building a platform + family of AI-native products that can transform any home or workplace into an agentic environment.

Founded by Daniel Fogg & Matt Webb, we are based in Borough, London in the UK.

Our ambition is to build a new type of consumer hardware company - like a British Sony for the AI Era.

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About the Role

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We are building a new category of AI-native consumer devices. Firmware is the foundation.

In this role, you will build the embedded platform that every Inanimate device will run on - from early breadboard prototypes through to globally shipped products.

You will work at the very beginning of our New Product Development process, enabling rapid hardware exploration while architecting production-grade firmware that grows with us.

We love people with side projects, who have a good sense for products, and know what great user experience feels like.

This is a senior IC role.

Matt

Co-Founder & CTO

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Your Responsibilities

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• Own the Firmware Platform: Architect and implement the core firmware layer that underpins every Inanimate device, balancing flexibility for rapid prototyping with production robustness.
• Lead Prototype Bring-Up: Rapidly stabilise early hardware (bench → EVT → DVT), writing firmware that enables fast iteration across sensing, interaction, and connectivity.
• Ship Connected Consumer Devices: Build secure provisioning, Wi-Fi/BLE connectivity, encrypted cloud communication, and fleet-level device management for products deployed globally.
• Integrate Multi-Modal Sensing: Develop robust pipelines for microphones (I2S audio), gesture/proximity sensing, and camera modules — handling acquisition, buffering, latency, and power constraints.
• Design for Scale & Longevity: Implement reliable OTA update systems, rollback strategies, version control, and diagnostics to support thousands (and eventually millions) of devices in the field.
• Bridge Hardware & Software: Work directly with PCB designers, industrial designers, backend engineers, and product to ensure firmware expresses product intent in physical form.
• Set the Embedded Standard: Define architecture, tooling, CI workflows, testing practices, and documentation that future embedded hires will build upon. </aside>

What You Bring to Inanimate

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• Production Firmware Experience (ESP32 / RTOS): Deep experience shipping firmware in C/C++ on ESP32-class microcontrollers using ESP-IDF.
• Connected Consumer Hardware: You’ve shipped real, connected devices to consumer environments — not dev kits — and understand reliability, provisioning, security, OTA updates and post-launch support.
• End-to-End Lifecycle Ownership: Comfortable moving from breadboard explorations to certification and global production, and maintaining firmware long after launch.
• Sensor & Audio Integration Expertise: Experience integrating microphones, cameras, and other sensors, including driver work and real-world performance tuning.
• Hardware Debugging Fluency: Confident reading schematics, debugging boards with scopes and logic analysers, and diagnosing cross-layer issues.
• Systems Thinking: You design firmware as a system — managing memory, latency, concurrency, power, and failure states deliberately.
• AI-Augmented Engineering: You actively use AI coding tools (e.g. Codex, Claude Code) as part of your workflow to move faster and think better, and have opinions on how to build SDKs that agents love.
• Collaborative Builder: Comfortable working with designers, software engineers, and commercial teams — translating product ambition into embedded reality.
• Curiosity-driver maker: You enjoy personal side projects and explorations, and bring a broad, hands-on curiosity to your work. You’re happy demoing your projects at various technical depths. </aside>

Benefits

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• Competitive Salary: We offer benchmarked salaries that are competitive with other European tech startups at a similar stage.
• Annual Leave: You’ll get 30 days including public holidays.
• Pension Scheme: We contribute 3% to anyone wanting to engage in our pension scheme.
• Travel to Work Scheme: We will help you get a bike through the Cycle to Work Scheme, and offer Season Ticket loans for public transport.
• Working from Home: We are a default in-person team. But we are happy for people to work from home on Fridays.
• Family Flexibility: Family life can be unpredictable. We are flexible when things happen, and you need time and space to support your family.
• Veteran Founders: We have built and scaled multiple products, teams, and companies. You are in good hands with a team that knows how to build and scale the right way.
• Great Culture: We want you to do your best work and create great products. To do that, we hire nice people that bring good vibes. And we create social moments to build and maintain togetherness. </aside>

Find out more

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If you want to find out more about Inanimate, check out

• Lab Notes, our weekly record of our work and influences as we build and ship Inanimate
• Our Reading List - a collection of blog posts written by us, or that inspire our work. </aside>