r/embedded

I’m an embedded developer with 13+ years of experience, using Ubuntu for development (for all mg career). Most of my work has been RTOS/bare-metal, with about 3 years in embedded Linux.

I’m considering a role at a company that uses Windows for development due to IT/security constraints. The team said they “manage,” but don’t really like it and rely on WSL when needed.

I’m pretty set in my ways and really value efficient workflows. For those who spent most of their career developing on Linux and later switched to Windows how bad was it? Did it noticeably impact your productivity?

FYI the job opportunity is OK nothing great I'm just bored in my current role and looking for change but not if that change makes me hate things more.

Hey r/Arduino,

Been documenting my embedded learning curve through builds over the past year. Everything is public if anyone wants to dig into the firmware or schematics.

What’s in the repos:

• VigiLight — PIR-based motion alert system using flashing LEDs (designed for hearing-impaired environments). Straightforward Arduino UNO + sensor logic, but the timing and debounce handling might save someone a headache. Code and wiring notes are here: https://github.com/serial-commit-dev/VigiLight
• N-35 Flight Prototype — Newtonian physics baked into a single-file Arduino control system for a twin-elevon aircraft. Covers thrust balancing, servo sequencing, and a calculated power-to-descent flight profile. Currently stable; working toward a modular stack with web-based remote control. Full kinematics and servo mixing logic: https://github.com/serial-commit-dev/N-35
• Web-Shooter (ESP32) — Electromagnetic induction actuator controlled via GPIO sequencing. Five stable releases so far; main learning was managing solenoid timing and flyback protection with a MOSFET + diode setup. Firmware and component diagram: https://github.com/serial-commit-dev/Web-Shooter
• Arduino-Projects — Basic starter collection (toll gate with ultrasonic, RFID logic, etc.). Good reference if you’re mentoring someone through their first sensor-interfacing sketches. Sketches and breadboard layouts: https://github.com/serial-commit-dev/Arduino-Projects

Build photos, kinematics breakdowns, and a consolidated view of all projects are documented on my portfolio if you want the visual side of things: https://serial-commit-dev.github.io/My-Portfolio/

a demonstration of TinyRTOS running on an STM32 Nucleo-F756ZG, rendering and dispatching all currently supported OSI commands over USART3 as of version 2026.5.21+2.

Repo: https://github.com/iwilkey/tinyrtos

yo

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been building a compact preemptive RTOS kernel completely from scratch in C for ARM Cortex-M (currently targeting the STM32F756ZG).

The original goal was purely educational: I wanted to deeply understand how RTOS kernels actually work internally instead of treating them like a black box.

Current features include:

• preemptive priority scheduler
• PendSV/SVC context switching
• separate PSP task stacks
• queues
• semaphores
• mutexes
• ISR-safe synchronization APIs
• stack watermarking
• runtime task diagnostics
• HardFault register dump + fault decoding
• UART-based OSI (Operating System Interface)

The project intentionally stays very close to the hardware and avoids heavy abstraction layers.

I’m fully aware it is NOT production-ready yet; there’s still no MPU support, stack overflow protection, priority inheritance, dynamic allocation, etc, but the core functionality is now stable enough that I’d love to open it up to contributors and discussion from people more experienced than me.

One of my main goals moving forward is exploring what it would take to evolve TinyRTOS into something significantly more robust while still keeping it small and understandable.

I’d genuinely appreciate:

• architecture critiques
• RTOS design feedback
• embedded debugging advice
• Cortex-M exception handling discussion
• contributors interested in helping improve it

Let me know what you think!

I have been working for the last few years on developing different power electronics projects using TI’s amazing C2000 MCUs.

Unfortunately we ran into a situation where our BD team got us a one off project of some crazy multistage multilevel topology complex enough that our power electronics engineer said we would need to switch to an FPGA to implement.

I have been tasked with selecting an FPGA platform for this project and I don’t know a whole lot about FPGAs.

I’m mainly asking for experienced FPGA developers to comment as my company has a history of hardware engineers overspeccing microcontroller platforms that have absolutely trash documentation and no support but look amazing on a one page datasheet with all the buzz words.

My question is what platform base would you recommend for power electronics and control development? Does picking this platform give you access to all IPs that perform for example simple control loops, PLL’s, etc like a microcontroller say C2000 usually does? I just don’t want to pick and get burned ahead of time. Thanks

After many requests, I’m posting my prep strategy and interview experience here:

Old post : https://www.reddit.com/r/embedded/s/lBKgmJBEsC

Recently got selected after one of the most mentally exhausting interview processes I’ve been through, and I thought I’d share the full story because the outcome could give hope to others

Background:
- almost 4 years experience in automotive validation/testing
- Mostly worked on Vector stack and application-side testing , no regular coding or low level driver work

The important part:
I seriously prepared for around 60 focused days while working full-time.

Prep included:
- C fundamentals (Neso Academy etc.)
- Basic C++
- ARM Cortex-M basics
- RTOS concepts
- Threads, mutexes, semaphores
- Producer-consumer
- Memory layout / linker / stack / heap
- Embedded systems fundamentals
- DSA basics again from scratch
- Some LeetCode medium problems
- Reverse linked list
- Binary search variants
- Hash maps / LRU attempts
- Bit manipulation
- IPC/scheduling concepts

Sources:

- Neso Academy YT playlist for C fundamentals
- Udemy courses by fastbit academy on ARM cortex and RTOS fundamentals
- ChatGPT for fast learning
- online compilers for coding practice and leetcode medium problems here and there

FYI - I used these sources mostly as a tools for brushing up as i had prior context in these topics from my academic days.

Tip: I created separate chat boxes for each topic in ChatGPT and only a particular chat box for only that topic to avoid mixup and quick reference

Also makes it easier to have an interactive quiz generated by the ChatGPT to test how well I’m learning
Interview process was 5 rounds total.

Interview experience:

Round 1:
Concurrency problem involving ordered thread execution using semaphores (odd/even printing style logic). Needed hints but eventually converged. Questions from current work and some academic projects relevant to their work.

Round 2:
Coding:
- Merge two sorted arrays
- Search in sorted matrix

Onsite round 3:
- C Memory map layout in depth grilling
- C fundamentals grilling
- Linked list reversal
- Basic array and pointer manipulation questions
- Deep questions on my relevant project from masters

Onsite round 4:
- Motivation for job change
- Background discussion over work and academic history
- logistic discussions

Round 5.

Got grilled for ~1.5 hours.

Topics:
- Multithreading on single-core systems
- Scheduling overhead
- Why multithreading helps/hurts
- Thread allocation strategy for image-processing systems
- Core vs virtual thread discussion
- types of semaphores and usages
- Asked to design a small parallel processing system and how the resource allocation should be done( theoretical)
- Detailed questions about my exact work experience and implementation depth

Then coding:

1. Implement memmove
2. Reverse bits of a number with optimization discussion
3. matrix problem involving row/column suffix sums

I misunderstood the matrix question twice under pressure.

Then HR called.

Received the written offer letter just today.

Anyway, posting this because during prep I used to read posts like these myself and assume everyone getting into top companies was already cracked from day one.

A lot of us are figuring it out in real time.

FYI - I used ChatGPT for formatting this post, excuse me if any mistakes are there.

I'm looking for an I2C controllable PWM generator IC, preferably under a buck a piece and with at least 4 channels. Should not require flashing of a firmware first unless that flashing can be done through the same I2C connection..

Any ideas?

So , i am currently trying to learn zephyr can anyone give me a good playlist or guide to use zephyr , also i want to read values using the ADC of an stm32 thats like one task that i need to do 100% how can i use zephyr for it and what should i do , i added some overlay files and stuff but its giving some error.

Hi I'm 28(m) and I'm curious to know is a career as an embedded engineer just Arduino in steroids. Is it just programming or are you also building the hardware. Is it possible to get into this field. I have a degree in biochemical engineering and the only programming I did was in Matlab. I've played around with Arduino and have enjoyed it. I'm currently learning programming. Is it worth pivoting into this field or is it simply not possible.

STM32World going rogue!

Trying out the new Streamline MCU RP2354 board. A dive into what is Raspberry Pico RP2350, WHY am I making this video (on a channel named STM32World) and finally - how easy it is to use.

#GettingStarted #Tutorial #Streamline #RP2350 #STM32World

Hi all, I have finished my junior year of EE and I’m a week into my embedded internship. I have been more hardware focused but this summer I thought I would try out an embedded position. I have taken multiple c courses and a microcontrollers class but it seems like they have not prepared me for this at all. My project is working on an embedded RTOS in c++ but I can not for the life of me follow the data flow. The amount of files and lines in these files combined with the abstraction of everything is really throwing me for a loop. Any suggestions to wrap my head around this so I can start making progress?

I've heard that logic is really good and I've got DS view which is not and I'm wondering what people think. I'm on a Mac

So, the I2C 7-bit addresses 0x00 - 0x07 are all reserved for "special purposes".

But, I found a CO2 concentration sensor that pays attention to writes to address 0x00 with a subsequent data byte of 0x06 to perform a commanded reset.

I've seen some devices that can get themselves discombobulated and I think that just pumping the SCL signal should get them to recombobulate themselves. So, I wrote a bus_pump() routine that just sends writes to address 0x00 to force the SCL line to toggle while holding the SDA line low the whole time.

But, if something out there is going to actually respond, operationally, to something like that, I need to find a different strategy.

So, does anyone know of any I2C devices that do weird things vis-a-vis the reserved addresses?

i am an embedded systems engineer student, and i want to know the technologies and the real world jobs that people do for Money to see what i need to work on