Founding QNX RTOS Engineer – Berlin

Role description

This role owns real-time runtime for a new sensor-fusion safety system product in industrial automation and robotics. You will build the certifiable RTOS foundation on QNX OS for Safety and QNX Hypervisor for Safety, starting with hardware bring-up and BSP maintenance and culminating in a release that supports certification.

You will define how mixed-critical workloads share a single SoC, design the partitioning and isolation strategy, and make the key runtime decisions around scheduling, IPC, memory behavior, and latency budgets. You will also keep the implementation aligned with MISRA C, MISRA C++, and AUTOSAR C++14, while producing the engineering and safety evidence needed for assessment under IEC 61508 and EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230.

This position is in a startup environment. You should be ready for ambiguity, tight schedules, shifting priorities, rapid iteration, working directly alongside the CTO, and assuming wider responsibility for decisions that shape the final product-market fit.

Visa: Visa sponsorship is available

Equity: ESOP available, will be discussed individually

Work arrangement: on-site

Work location: Berlin

Responsibilities

• Own QNX-based runtime end-to-end, from hardware to certified release.
• Port, integrate, and maintain QNX OS for Safety and QNX Hypervisor for Safety on target SoCs.
• Design mixed-criticality partitioning so multiple workloads can run on one SoC without compromising the safety case.
• Build and tune real-time execution for deterministic behavior, including scheduling, IPC, memory isolation, and worst-case latency budgets.
• Maintain the BSP and support low-level integration with boards, peripherals, and device drivers.
• Define and enforce coding and architecture discipline using MISRA C, MISRA C++, and AUTOSAR C++14.
• Produce the engineering, verification, and safety evidence needed for assessment under IEC 61508 and EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230.
• Work closely with safety, hardware, and systems teams to translate requirements into a certifiable runtime platform.

Main requirements

• Strong embedded systems background with proven ownership of production runtime software, ideally for perception and vision sensors.
• Expert knowledge of QNX for safety-critical applications
• Expert knowledge of QNX Hypervisor: microkernel message-passing, resource managers, adaptive partitioning, POSIX conformance.
• Expert C skills.
• Expert C++14/17/20/23 skills.
• Experience in MISRA C, MISRA C++, or AUTOSAR C++14.
• BSP and device-driver experience: ARMv8-A/ARMv9-A architecture, MMU/SMMU, and IPC.
• Fluency with V-model, Automotive SPICE, or IEC 61508 Part 3.
• Practical safety analysis experience with FMEA, FMEDA, DFA, FTA, HAZOP, or STPA.
• Fluent English.

Other requirements

• Comfortable working in an early-stage startup where the runtime stack is still being shaped.
• Ability to make run-time stack and implementation decisions that stand up in a safety review.

Nice to have, but not mandatory

• Experience with hypervisor-based mixed-criticality systems beyond QNX.
• Experience collaborating with assessors, auditors, or certification bodies.
• Experience applying IEC 61508 and EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230 requirements in a certifiable embedded system.
• Experience taking a product through SIL2, ASIL-B, or higher assessment.
• Exposure to industrial cybersecurity or automotive cybersecurity requirements.
• Contributions to QNX-related open source.
• Experience at BlackBerry QNX or with similar safety-certified RTOS environments.
• Experience porting software from general-purpose Linux to an RTOS.
• Experience with additional safety-certified hypervisors such as INTEGRITY, PikeOS, or LynxOS-178.
• Familiarity with robotics platforms, autonomous systems, or medical-device-grade embedded software.
• Experience as a Founder or Founding Engineer at an early-stage startup

Benefits

• Meal vouchers
• Potential support with relocation to Berlin