Tom Doyle
Tom Doyle Labs Available for contract work
Embedded Hardware & Firmware

Tom Doyle

Independent Embedded Systems Contractor

I design the circuit boards and write the embedded firmware that runs on them, from schematic capture and PCB layout through bring-up and field debug. Open to 1099 contract engagements, remote-first with occasional travel.

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Selected Work

Embedded hardware & firmware projects

A sample of hardware I've designed and brought up. Details shown here are limited to the engineering (layout, interfaces, and firmware), not the products or businesses they were built for.

Overhead view of a linear actuator assembly with a custom control PCB mounted between the motor and lead screw, on a workbench cutting mat Bench setup of three interconnected prototype circuit boards wired together for testing, with a battery pack and cabling nearby

Fleet Security Firmware

Architected FreeRTOS firmware across a dual-STM32 system for securing shipping fleets: a multi-threaded task/queue/mutex architecture for deterministic behavior, a CAN-bus bootloader (Microboot) with dedicated linker scripts, and an internal nRF52/Zephyr BLE template used on later projects.

FreeRTOS Dual STM32 CAN bootloader nRF52 / Zephyr BLE
Green PCB carrier board with a red NXP i.MX6 system-on-module installed, showing SIM slots, Ethernet jacks, and a coin-cell battery

Aircraft Maintenance Computer

Bare-metal C firmware for a commercial aircraft's central maintenance computer. Led a processor migration to NXP i.MX6 (Cortex-A9), wrote I/O drivers, and supported verification efforts toward 100% structural coverage for DO-178 DAL A software.

NXP i.MX6 / Cortex-A9 SPI / I2C / UART / CAN ARINC-429 DO-178 DAL A
Two small green driver PCBs with a soldered wire harness and pin header, on a workbench Night vision goggle housing on a workbench connected to debug probes and an oscilloscope during bring-up

Night Vision Goggle Driver Boards

Designed two PCBs to drive a night vision goggle heads-up display for a military application: schematic capture, board bring-up, debug, and rework, while managing timelines directly with the client.

Schematic capture Board bring-up & rework HUD driver electronics Military application
EMC pre-compliance test setup with a robotics device on a ground plane, cabled to test equipment in a shielded room

EMC Compliance Redesign

Redesigned a consumer robotics PCB against EMC best practices to pass FCC emissions testing, verified through pre-compliance testing at an independent test lab (Intertek).

FCC Part 15 EMI mitigation PCB redesign Pre-compliance testing
Two purple PCB assemblies side by side, showing component placement and silkscreen labeling The two-board stack held in a hand for scale, with power and signal wires connected

UAV RF Signature Reduction Boards

Designed two PCBs and developed embedded C firmware for an STM32 microcontroller to control metamaterial panels reducing a UAV's RF signature, delivered to the Air Force under STTR contract FA8649-20-P-1015. Owned the full design cycle: component selection, breadboarding, schematic capture, board layout, and firmware bring-up, including a custom Python command-line interpreter to support board bring-up.

STM32 / Cortex-M Embedded C firmware Air Force STTR Custom bring-up CLI (Python)
On the bench
  • Bench power supply
  • Digital multimeter
  • Oscilloscope
  • Logic analyzer

About

I'm an embedded systems engineer working across the full stack of a board: schematic, layout, bring-up, and the firmware that makes the hardware do something useful. I like small, low-power designs where every part on the BOM has to earn its place.

I'm currently taking on independent 1099 contract work: anything from a single design review to owning a board from schematic through firmware bring-up. Remote-first, with occasional travel for bring-up or lab work when it's useful.

Get in touch

Need hands-on embedded support?

I'm glad to take a look at a project brief, a stalled design, or a firmware bug that's outlasted its budget. Reach out and tell me what you're working on.

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