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hardEmbedded Systems Engineer interview question

You receive the first prototype of a new custom board. How do you bring it up?

What the interviewer wants to hear

  • Visual inspection and check power rails before connecting firmware
  • Confirm debugger connection and clock configuration
  • Blink an LED and get a UART console working first
  • Bring up peripherals one at a time with test firmware
  • Use scope and logic analyser; log issues for the hardware team

Model answer

First I inspect the board for assembly problems, then power it from a bench supply with a current limit and measure every rail and its ripple before anything else. Next I connect the SWD debugger, confirm I can read the chip ID, and run a minimal program on the internal oscillator. Then I blink an LED and get a UART console, which gives me a debugging channel. After that I switch to the external crystal and the full clock tree, and check clock output on a scope. I bring up peripherals one at a time with small test firmware: I2C and SPI devices by reading ID registers, checking signals with a logic analyser against the schematic and datasheets, then ADC, memory, radio and power modes, measuring sleep current. I record each problem with evidence and share it quickly with the hardware engineers, because board fixes take time.

Can you answer it under time pressure?

Take a timed hard round and get scored on every answer.

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