Real-Time Software Engineer

Discover the Real-Time Software Engineer job: roles, educational background, skills, salary,…

Are you looking for a company specializing in embedded software to help you with your project?

Read more about our development services offer, and then do not hesitate to contact us, so that we can discuss about it together.

ELSYS has design centers in Europe (France), Eastern Europe (Serbia) and a branch in the USA (California, in the Silicon Valley).

Contents:

Roles and responsibilities
Educational background
Required Skills
Salary
Jobs

What does a real time engineer do ? Roles and responsibilities

The real-time software engineers design and develop real-time embedded software. This has various dimensions.

First, the specification of a program and the preparation of its architecture according to the need expressed by the applicant. They then choose the microcontroller or the microprocessor with which they will work according to a certain number of criteria (frequency of operation, available interfaces etc.). More generally, they will take into account the constraints of the embedded world (computing power, timings, memory size etc.), which are more restricted than in other areas.

Then, the coding part, during which they will implement what has been specified.

Finally, the validation part, which includes different types of tests:

Unit tests on a PC, to test the source code.
Functional tests with an electronic board where they may use an oscilloscope to check timings for example.
Integration tests where they will check the overall functioning of the system which can include several electronic boards, PC software, …

This profession can be exercised in many application areas – medical, industrial etc. -, in different working environments.

How to become a Real-Time software engineer?

To become a Real-Time Software Engineer at ELSYS Design, you need to havea master’s degree in computer science.

Ideally, you need at least a first professional experience, which can be an internship, during which you have used a real-time operating system.

Required skills

The Real-Time Engineer must generally master the C language as well as a real-time OS (VxWorks, RTLinux, QNX) on target microcontroller.

Ideally, they have a good knowledge of hardware design ; to note that they often interact with electronic boards.

They also know how to use tools, including:

Static source code analysis (CodeSonar, LDRA) to eliminate any errors.
Version Management (SVN), in order to have a traceability of the modifications made in the code and to allow several developers to work on the same files.
Measuring equipment such as an oscilloscope or a multimeter.

Last, technical English for non-native speakers is often required.

Salary

The salary of a real-time software engineer depends on his/her educational background, level of experience, project track record, the region where he/she work.
At the beginning of one’s career in France, this engineer can often expect a salary between 33K € and 36K €.