Hire by skill · Firmware and embedded software
Hire a BLE Firmware Engineer
A BLE firmware engineer builds the Bluetooth Low Energy side of a device: the GATT services your app talks to, advertising and connection parameters, pairing and bonding, throughput, and the power cost of every radio event. Talent Badger's bench includes firmware specialists who have shipped BLE products on nRF52, ESP32 and STM32, available fractionally or per project to build, fix or review the BLE layer.
What BLE firmware development covers
- GATT design: services and characteristics laid out so the app writes commands and receives notifications instead of polling, with permissions per characteristic and a plan for changing the interface without breaking installed apps.
- Advertising and connection parameters: advertising interval and payload, connection interval, peripheral latency and supervision timeout, chosen for battery life and responsiveness and checked against what phones actually grant.
- Throughput: ATT MTU exchange, Data Length Extension, the 2M PHY and multiple packets per connection event, measured end to end with real phones rather than calculated.
- Pairing and bonding: LE Secure Connections, an association model that matches the device's display and buttons, bond storage and deletion, and the security mode and level each characteristic requires.
- Stack and radio work: Nordic's nRF Connect SDK on Zephyr, ESP-IDF with NimBLE or Bluedroid, or STM32WB, plus Wi-Fi coexistence on combo chips and a current profile of advertising and connection events.
Signs you need a BLE specialist
- Connections drop or bonds break on some phones, often after an OS update or only on one platform.
- Firmware images, logs or sensor bursts take minutes to transfer because the link still runs at the default 23-byte ATT MTU.
- The radio dominates the battery budget and nobody has profiled what each advertising and connection event costs on the real board.
- Launch is close and Bluetooth SIG qualification and product listing aren't planned.
How to vet a BLE engineer
- How do you increase BLE throughput? A strong answer names MTU exchange, Data Length Extension, the 2M PHY, connection interval and packets per connection event, and notes that the central, usually a phone, sets the connection interval.
- What behaves differently on iOS and Android? Look for specifics: iOS may reject connection parameters outside Apple's accessory guidelines, Android behavior varies by vendor and OS version, and both cache GATT tables, which is why the Service Changed characteristic matters.
- Which pairing method fits our product? Expect LE Secure Connections, an association model chosen from the device's inputs and outputs, and a plain statement that Just Works gives no man-in-the-middle protection.
- How do you estimate battery life from BLE activity? A good answer measures the charge per advertising and connection event on the real board, with a tool such as Nordic's Power Profiler Kit, then averages over the actual duty cycle.
- What does Bluetooth qualification involve? A strong candidate separates SIG qualification and listing, which carries a Declaration ID fee and less testing when you build on qualified components, from FCC and other radio approvals.
Cost and engagement shape
- On Talent Badger each profile shows a rate band set by assessed level, from $95/hr at engineer level up to $245/hr at the top of the most senior band.
- Typical shapes: a GATT and pairing design review, a connection-stability or throughput fix, a port to another BLE stack, or building the BLE layer alongside your app team.
- Planning range, not a quote: implementing and integrating one defined block, such as a custom GATT service with its pairing rules, is commonly budgeted around 40 hours. Load that by about 1.3–1.5× for reviews, meetings and contingency.
- SIG listing fees and radio certification sit outside engineering hours. Work runs under a statement of work with milestone-gated billing, and IP assignment is signed before work begins.
BLE / Bluetooth Low Energy specialists on the bench
Božidar Kresaj
Connectivity Architect
BLE / Wireless Protocols · Embedded C/C++ · STM32 / ARM Cortex-M · Linux / Yocto / BSP
Oleksandr Gergel
Specialist
BLE / Wireless Protocols · Embedded C/C++ · Bootloader Development · STM32 / ARM Cortex-M
Yahya Aouled Amer
Specialist
BLE / Wireless Protocols · STM32 / ARM Cortex-M · RTOS (FreeRTOS, Zephyr, ThreadX) · Python
Common questions
BLE work is billed by the hours it takes, so scope drives the total: one GATT service on a known stack is far smaller than a new product with multiple roles, firmware updates over BLE and Wi-Fi coexistence. On Talent Badger rates run from $95/hr at engineer level to $245/hr at the top of the most senior band, and defined work can be priced as fixed milestones.