About the Role
Our core product is a sophisticated IoT edge-to-cloud data platform. We bridge the gap between physical hardware and cloud-based intelligence, enabling seamless data ingestion, processing, and management at scale.
We are seeking a Senior IT/OT Systems Engineer specialized in low-level development and high-performance data acquisition. In this role, you will be the architect of our “edge” intelligence, responsible for building the high-speed interfaces and telemetry collectors that monitor industrial and marine hardware. We value a “mechanical sympathy” mindset—understanding how software interacts with silicon and copper—and prioritize engineers who can write performant, memory-safe code for mission-critical monitoring environments.
Core Responsibilities
- Low-Level Data Acquisition: Design and implement high-performance data collection agents using Rust and Go. You will focus on minimizing latency and CPU overhead while maintaining 24/7 reliability for continuous telemetry stream ingestion.
- Protocol Interfacing: Develop and maintain interfaces for a variety of industrial and vehicular protocols, including MODBUS (TCP/RTU), CANOpen, J1939, NMEA 2000, S-BUS, OPC-UA, and BACNet.
- Protocol Reverse Engineering: Analyze and decode proprietary or undocumented communication protocols. You will use traffic sniffing and pattern analysis to translate closed-source hardware signals into structured, readable data for our platform.
- Technical Site Architecture: Analyze customer electrical schematics and site layouts to specify the optimal hardware configuration for each deployment. You will bridge the gap between abstract software requirements and physical installation, ensuring seamless hardware integration on location.
- Automated Provisioning: Manage the deployment and lifecycle of edge devices using Ansible. You will ensure that our remote gateways remain updated, secure, and correctly configured.
- System Optimization: Profile and optimize system-level resource usage (memory, I/O, and interrupts) to ensure our software runs efficiently on constrained gateway hardware.
Qualifications & Skills
- Systems Programming: Expert-level proficiency in Rust or Go, with a deep understanding of concurrency, memory management, and low-level I/O.
- OT & Industrial Protocols: Hands-on experience interfacing with physical hardware via serial, Ethernet, and CAN-bus interfaces for data extraction.
- Linux Internals: Strong comfort working within embedded Linux environments, including systemd, network configuration, and debugging hardware peripherals.
- Automation: Practical experience using Ansible for configuration management and remote orchestration.
Preferred Experience
- Experience reverse engineering network protocols.
- Knowledge or Working Experience in Industrial Automation Protocols (i.e. Modbus, OPC-UA), Maritime Protocols (NMEA, J1939), Building Automation Protocols (BACnet), etc…
- Familiarity with containerization at the edge and how it interacts with host hardware.
Why Join Us?
You will work on the “front lines” where code meets reality. This role is perfect for an engineer who enjoys the challenge of making disparate industrial machines speak a common language for global observability. You’ll have the autonomy to choose the best tools for the job while seeing your work power real-world industrial infrastructure.
Must Haves
- Strong communication skills in English.
- Fast learner with the ability to ramp up quickly across new topics and challenges – we value learning over experience.
- Availability to work from our Lisbon office in Areeiro, around 4 days per week on average.
- Ability to perform well in fast-moving, ambiguous environments that require ownership, sound judgment, and tight team coordination.
Nortech Perks
Schedule
- Flexible work schedule.
- No culture of overtime. We care about sustainable performance and real work-life balance.
- Flexible vacation policy: we trust you to take the time off you need, when you need it, to stay productive and fulfilled over the long term.
Compensation
- 60k – 90k€/year range dependent on skills and experience
- Phantom stock options offer
- Optional tax optimization strategies for those who want to maximize take-home pay.
- Health insurance.
- Meal allowance and transportation pass fully covered.
Culture
- A friendly, relaxed, collaborative, and genuinely supportive team.
- High trust, high ownership culture.
- Radical transparency around compensation and other non-traditional aspects of company operations.
Growth
- Support for training, learning, and personal development whenever needed.
- Freedom to apply your strengths where they create the most impact, while growing into new areas that interest you.
- As a growing startup, you’ll have outstanding room to grow both personally and professionally.