Berla is seeking an Embedded Software Engineer to join the research team. The mission of the research team is to discover how vehicle systems store and protect data and to develop extraction and analysis methods that power a collection of vehicle system forensic tools. These tools are used by organizations around the world to gather essential information and investigate critical incidents. This position is well suited to an engineer drawn to complex, undocumented systems who works effectively at the intersection of software and hardware. The successful candidate will analyze how embedded devices operate, recover data from protected or unfamiliar systems, and translate those findings into reliable capabilities our customers depend on. We evaluate candidates on demonstrated technical ability, and welcome strong engineers whether their expertise was built through formal education, professional experience, or the security research community.
As an Embedded Software Engineer your responsibilities will be:
● Extract and analyze embedded firmware and operating system software from automotive systems to discover key artifacts such as data structures, storage formats, and protection mechanisms
● Access embedded devices through hardware and debug interfaces to acquire firmware and memory, and recover data from locked, damaged, or protected devices using appropriate techniques
● Work with embedded operating systems such Linux, QNX and Android
● Defeat device protections such as secure boot, encryption, obtain ADB and root access to target systems, where required to complete analysis
● Decrypt and analyze encrypted SQL databases and proprietary storage formats to recover and interpret structured data
● Analyze recovered data to identify, correlate, and validate artifacts of interest, and document findings for downstream forensic use
● Develop repeatable, forensically sound extraction and decoding methods and maintain clear documentation of methodologies, target hardware, and attack surfaces
● Build automation to parse, decode, and validate recovered data at scale
● Maintain a code repository in accordance with industry's best practices as directed by leadership
● Collaborate with engineers, analysts, and product managers to prioritize targets and move research into supported product capabilities
As a candidate, your essential skills, qualifications and experience need to include:
● At least 3 years of experience in embedded software, embedded systems, or embedded security
● Experience performing binary analysis, including disassembly and decompilation, and reading assembly on embedded-class architectures
● Familiarity with Linux, QNX and Android based embedded systems and how they store and protect data
● Hands-on hardware skills, including working with debug interfaces, board-level rework, and signal capture
● Familiarity with embedded communication buses and the ability to observe and interpret device traffic
● Proficiency in a scripting or programming language for building parsing and automation tooling
● Solid understanding of file systems, data encoding, encrypted SQL databases, and cryptographic and secure-boot concepts
● Strong analytical and data analysis skills, with the ability to interpret, correlate, and validate data and work through undocumented systems
● Experience maintaining code in a version-controlled repository following established best practices
● Clear communication skills, comfort working cross-functionally, and the ability to travel locally and internationally as needed
Base Salary Range: $125,000 - $150,000
Location: Annapolis, Maryland
Type: Full Time
Berla offers a compensation package that includes a competitive base salary plus annual performance bonus. Additional benefits include, but not limited to, 100% company paid Health, Dental, Vision, Disability insurance, Life insurance, as well as 401(k) with company matching, and Paid time off. We consider many factors when determining salary offers, such as candidate's work experience, education, training & skills, as well as market and business considerations. We are also open to considering candidates with experience and qualifications at a different level than required in a job posting, which may affect the compensation package offered.
Company Overview
Berla provides cutting-edge solutions to our customers to identify, acquire and analyze critical vehicle system data to determine where a vehicle has been, what happened during an incident and who may be involved. We offer mobile apps, hardware kits, and PC based software to our customers for use in accomplishing their specific mission set or investigation.
Berla is committed to hiring and retaining a high-performance team and dynamic workforce. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer, making decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, or any other characteristics protected by law.
Note to all recruiting agencies: Berla does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Berla employees or any other organization location. Berla is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.
Pay: $125,000.00 - $150,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- 401(k) matching
- Dental insurance
- Flexible schedule
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person
