Nex is on a mission to help families rediscover the joy of movement. Created by parents for parents, Nex combines technology and play to deliver fun, social, and interactive experiences powered by natural body motion, encouraging kids and adults to move more, play more, and have fun together. Nex Playground, the company’s award-winning active play system, is purpose-built to get families moving year-round, with safety and privacy as core considerations in its intentional design. It is certified kidSAFE+ COPPA compliant and built to support healthy, active play for all ages and abilities.
Nex Playground features a growing library of 50+ experiences, including motion and dance games, fitness and educational experiences, and Nex Originals. Content includes collaborations with partners like Hasbro, Sesame Workshop, and NBCUniversal. Nex has been recognized by Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, TIME’s Best Inventions, and Parents’ Best Entertainment System for Families, and has earned Red Dot, IDEA, and Core77 international design awards. We encourage you to explore Have Fun and Is Motion Gaming Back?, as they offer a deeper look into our culture, values, and explain how our approach to motion gaming differs from previous generations.
To protect yourself from recruitment scams, please note that Nex communicates through official company emails ending in @nex.inc. If you receive a suspicious email or message, please do not respond and report it immediately to us.
Location: Hong Kong
Type: Full-Time
The Role
As Nex’s Senior Embedded Software / AOSP Engineer, you bring Nex Playground to life. Your OS and firmware run on millions of devices, turning family living rooms into playgrounds where body motion, software, and on-device AI come together as one experience. You will lead the bringup of new platforms and hardware, and craft the HAL and framework layers that fuse our games, system maps, peripherals, and CV/ML pipelines with the silicon beneath.
You will architect the OS and own the full stack — SoC, GPU, NPU, Camera, ISP, WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI, and power — squeezing best-in-class performance out of consumer-grade hardware. You will champion stability and security end-to-end, from a hardened boot chain to deep-stack profiling and disciplined root-cause analysis of field issues. As a technical anchor for the platform, you will help shape Nex’s hardware roadmap and the future products that millions will play on next. You’ll report to the Director of Hardware Engineering.
The Mindset
You build technology that improves people’s lives — especially where the physical and digital worlds meet. You live at the boundary of software and hardware, with deep instincts for how systems behave from the boot loader up. You chase root causes, not symptoms, and take pride in products that hold up at scale. You raise the bar for the systems and the people around you.
What You’ll Do
- Bring up new platforms and hardware, and optimize Playground’s AOSP-based OS across SoC, GPU, NPU, Camera, ISP, WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI, and power for best-in-class performance.
- Design and implement system APIs, HAL, and framework layers in close partnership with the app, game, and CV/ML teams.
- Tune state-of-the-art image processing, CV, and ML pipelines to run efficiently on-device.
- Own system security end-to-end — harden the boot and verification chain, manage keys, and keep security patches current.
- Profile and debug deep into the stack with tools like perfetto, systrace, tcpdump, and Arm Mobile Studio, and drive field issues to root cause.
- Partner with SoC vendors and ODM / JDM partners on BSP drops, escalations, and silicon-level issues.
- Support manufacturing and factory operations — device provisioning, calibration data, key storage, and factory test images.
Must Have
- 5+ years building embedded system software.
- Hands-on experience across multiple AOSP versions, including BSP and SoC bringup.
- Working knowledge of the AOSP build system and release tooling.
- Track record shipping massively deployed embedded products.
- Deep knowledge of Android and Linux internals — kernel, device drivers, HAL, multi-processing, SELinux, verified boot, and performance optimization.
- Proficiency in low-level system debugging.
- Proficiency in C, C++, and Python.
- Good English communication.
Nice to Have
- Experience with TV, set-top-box, video conferencing, or gaming platforms.
- Domain knowledge of cameras, ISPs, and image processing pipelines.
- Domain knowledge of NPUs and deploying ML at the edge.
- Domain knowledge of Arm Cortex CPUs and Mali GPUs.
- Depth in the connectivity stack — WiFi supplicant, Bluetooth, and HID / controller pairing for peripherals.
- Hands-on experience with SoC vendor platforms such as Amlogic, Rockchip, MediaTek, or Qualcomm.
- Open-source contributions to the Linux kernel, AOSP, or related projects.
#LI-Onsite
We Offer
- Competitive compensation package.
- Flexible working hours and vacation policy.
- Product-driven culture that treasures talents and individual growth.
- Front-row seat and hands-on experience with cutting edge technologies in the evolving gaming field
Nex is located in San Jose, California, USA and Hong Kong. Learn more about us at nex.inc/who-we-are.
We encourage applications even if you don’t meet more than 50% of the requirements — we believe that experience comes in many forms!
Nex is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. This policy applies to all individuals at every stage of the employment relationship, including all current and prospective employees, and covers all employment decisions including recruitment, hiring, job assignment, promotion, compensation, benefits, training, discipline and termination.
We are committed to providing a workplace free from discrimination and harassment and to fostering an inclusive environment for all employees.
