Embedded Software Engineer | Firmware | RTOS | Linux Systems
I work on software that interacts directly with hardware: bootloaders, device drivers, schedulers, and systems that can’t afford to crash.
Currently part of the Ciena Optical platform team, focusing on board bring-up, communication interfaces, and system reliability.
Most of my work starts long before user-space exists, somewhere between reset vectors and linker scripts.
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Firmware and Drivers
- Peripheral interfaces: SPI, I²C, UART, GPIO, 1-Wire
- Interrupt handling, DMA-driven transfers, timing analysis
- Device drivers for FPGA-based modules and custom boards
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RTOS and Bare-Metal Systems
- FreeRTOS, VxWorks, and experimental schedulers
- Task switching, IPC mechanisms, timers, and tick configuration
- Memory management on constrained MCUs and ISR latency reduction
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Bootloaders and Firmware Update
- STM32 bootloader with UART/SPI update capability
- Flash mapping, integrity checks, and handoff to application
- Experimenting with fail-safe update and recovery paths
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Linux and System Integration
- Yocto build customization for ARM targets
- Device tree configuration, initramfs tuning, kernel module builds
- Cross-compilation workflows and rootfs optimization
| Project | Description |
|---|---|
| stm32-bootloader | Custom bootloader supporting firmware updates over UART with CRC validation |
| mini-rtos | Lightweight scheduler implementing preemption, round-robin, and message passing |
| emmc-layout | Exploring eMMC boot stages, flash partitioning, and address remapping |
| qemu-lab | Virtual ARM environment using QEMU + GDB for debugging RTOS internals |
- Languages: C, C++, Bash, Makefile
- MCUs: STM32 (F4/F7), ARM Cortex-M
- Debugging: GDB, OpenOCD, ST-Link, occasional
printf()rescue - Build Systems: GNU Make, CMake, Yocto
- Version Control: Git, Gerrit
- Analysis: objdump, readelf, map inspection, linker script tuning
- Environment: Ubuntu (WSL / native), macOS for cross-builds
Somewhere in flash memory, around 0x08000000, there’s always a version that finally works.
- Designing compact, deterministic RTOS kernels
- Understanding how context switches actually propagate through stacks
- Building robust firmware update flows with rollback and validation
- Using QEMU for system-level testing and fault injection
- Low-level debugging with memory dumps and peripheral register tracing
- GitHub: github.com/prateikjena
- Email: pratik.mcs20.du@gmail.com
- LinkedIn: Prateek Jena
If it boots, that’s progress. If it jumps to application, that’s success.