Embedded & Electronics
This is where ideas become physical.
I work close to the metal—where voltages, timing margins, and assumptions collide. Whether it’s a tiny “blinky-blink” device or a 16-core server platform, the core problem is always the same: make a real thing behave predictably in the real world.
That work spans the full stack:
- Hardware design
From symbol and footprint libraries to BOM management, constraints, stackups, and routing. I’ve built boards in both Cadence and EAGLE, handled impedance-controlled layouts, and produced clean Gerber/CAM packages that survive contact with actual fabrication houses. - Firmware and bootstrapping
I bring hardware to life—from bare microcontrollers handling power sequencing or base-level control, up through bootloaders like U-Boot in SPI flash, and into full operating systems such as Linux. I’m comfortable living in that awkward space where “nothing works yet” and building the path forward one layer at a time. - Hardware validation
Pre-power inspections. Boot-sequence verification. Functional testing. I treat “does it turn on?” as the beginning of a system’s life, not the end of the job. - Debugging and failure analysis
I’m fluent in oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, DMMs, spectrum analyzers, and the thousand little utilities that vendors and FAEs hand you when something is almost working. I enjoy the forensic side of engineering—understanding not just what broke, but why it behaved that way. - Thermal and stress validation
I routinely push systems to the edges of their temperature and throughput envelopes to confirm that performance holds under real-world extremes. “Works on the bench” is not a meaningful milestone.
The scale varies wildly. Some projects are tiny and playful—like the Glow-Go series and other light-based experiments. Others are industrial: dense server platforms, SoCs, high-speed interfaces, and power-hungry systems with real consequences when they misbehave.
What ties them together is a fascination with systems that involve motion, sensation, and intelligence—or, ideally, all three at once.
If you’re curious how this looks in practice, start with:
- Automated Light Painting Machine
- Interactive Light Wall
- Jaws Guitar
Those projects live at the intersection of embedded control, physical behavior, and creative intent—the same place most of my favorite work ends up.
If you’re more interested in the software side of how I build tools around hardware, see the Automation & Tooling section. And if your real problem isn’t a board or a chip but the system surrounding them, Systems & Process Improvement
is probably the better entry point.
This page is about the layer where electrons, code, and reality meet—and where things get interesting.