Hardware + Firmware, end to end: I design the PCB and write the firmware that runs on it.
From schematic to silicon to the cloud: reliable, resource-efficient embedded systems for industrial & IoT applications.
- 🎓 Control & Industrial Instrumentation Engineer, working full-time on custom hardware and firmware (my core specialty).
- 🔧 I take embedded products end to end: schematic → PCB → firmware → IoT platform.
- 🏭 Hardware I've designed has reached mass production for several employers.
- ⚡ I write safe/modern C++ for constrained MCUs and maintain a growing ecosystem of open-source libraries.
- 🌐 Currently expanding into full-stack web & mobile to deliver complete IoT products on my own.
- 🧭 Experienced department head & project lead: I've run full projects and managed engineering teams.
- 📫 Reach me at maximiliano.ramirezbravo@gmail.com
Languages
Embedded & Firmware
Hardware, CAD & Modeling
Web, Mobile & Backend
Tooling & DevOps
Cloud & IoT Platforms
Edge Computing & Computer Vision
Communication Protocols
Project Management
PCB design is a core part of what I do, not just a side skill.
- 🛠️ Years of professional Altium Designer experience, with multiple boards taken to mass production for different employers.
- 📐 Comfortable with high-speed / high-reliability techniques: controlled impedance, length matching, differential pairs, and RF antenna routing.
- 🔬 I simulate my signal-chain designs in SPICE before committing to copper: running transient, Monte-Carlo and parameter-sweep analyses on op-amps, drivers, voltage converters and analog/digital I/O to validate behavior across every use case.
- ✅ 100% first-pass success rate on my last 4 boards. I can ship a design with very high confidence that it will work the first time.
- 📚 Built my own Altium ecosystem over the years: a curated component library database, reusable design blocks, and standardized design-rule templates.
- 📖 Grounded in modern PCB & signal-integrity practice, following the work of Rick Hartley and Eric Bogatin.
All projects below were carried out under NDA (client names, locations and identifying details are deliberately omitted). Descriptions are generalized to the engineering work and my contribution.
🚨 Off-Grid Early-Warning Beacon Network
The challenge. A facility periodically releases a large volume of water into a river. People downstream - across an area with minimal cellular coverage and almost no grid power - had been caught off-guard by sudden surges, with serious safety consequences. The goal: warn them in time, reliably and autonomously.
The solution. A fully off-grid, self-powered network of multi-level warning beacons (traffic-light stages + a siren), each node running on solar + battery. Nodes communicated over a long-range sub-GHz RF network spanning tens of kilometers (range verified in the field), with a tall master node providing the backbone link.
How it works. A sensor unit reads analog 4-20 mA process signals and publishes them to a private MQTT server. A processing unit ingests the data, runs an ML model (trained on historical data) and computes the required state for each beacon based on its distance / time-to-event - closer beacons escalate sooner than distant ones.
My role (engineering lead). Designed all PCBs, enclosures and most of the firmware; deployed the IoT platform; designed and field-verified the entire RF network (RF-propagation simulations confirmed on site); handled field installation hands-on, including work at height on the master node; and supervised the field & lab team.
🌐 Custom Field Telemetry & Control System
The challenge. A large field operation was running blind - data such as shifts, soil humidity/temperature and harvest counts was logged by hand, on paper. Earlier attempts with off-the-shelf products had failed because they were too rigid to adapt to the operation's real workflow.
The solution. A fully custom, modular telemetry & control system with a React monitoring/control platform and a family of purpose-built devices:
- Datalogger - solar + battery node (sized to survive long low-sun periods), cellular connectivity, dry + 0-10V/4-20mA inputs and RS485 (used with soil humidity/temperature sensors).
- Irrigation Controller - high I/O count, WiFi/Ethernet/cellular; runs irrigation programs for groups of remote nodes and centralizes data to the cloud over MQTT.
- Irrigation Node - low-power LoRa node (solar + battery) driving solenoids for zone irrigation.
- Modular System - fixed base board with swappable function cards (Ethernet, analog in, digital in, analog out, CAN).
My role. Designed several of the boards (and their firmware), designed the LoRa network for the first deployment, carried out field installation, and managed project progress.
Outcome. Deployed successfully and later scaled to hundreds of nodes across multiple sites.
🤖 Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) for Material Handling
The challenge. An industrial conveyor system sheds coarse material along its length, which piles up underneath. It had to be cleared manually every day - shovel and wheelbarrow - under harsh conditions.
The solution. A purpose-built UGV resembling a backhoe, with a multi-stage telescopic arm capable of lifting hundreds of kilograms, plus custom hardware:
- Controller - a PCB stack controlling the entire vehicle.
- Remote Control - a handheld unit with button/joystick inputs and a touchscreen for control and live vehicle status.
My role. Contributed to several Controller PCBs and firmware; owned the Remote Control end to end (including its housing) and firmware; and built a reusable library framework from scratch shared across both the Controller and the Remote Control. Co-led on-site operator training.
A curated ecosystem of embedded C++ libraries (most are header-only and zero-heap policy).
| Library | Description | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| RTOScppESP32 | A modern C++ wrapper over FreeRTOS for the ESP32. | |
| ReactiveESP32 | ⚡ Reactive, event-driven programming for ESP32 microcontrollers. | |
| Statechart | Hierarchical State Machine (HSM) library with zero dynamic allocation. |
| Library | Description | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| BytePack | Type-safe binary serialization for MCUs: quantized floats, compile-time size budgets, zero heap. Header-only C++17. | |
| ByteFrame | COBS + CRC framing for any byte stream, with link statistics. Header-only C++11. Pairs with BytePack. | |
| LoRa-E22T | Driver for EByte E22-series LoRa modules (SX1262 / SX1268). | |
| SIM7600Module | Driver to control SIM7600 4G LTE modules. |
💡
BytePack(type-safe binary serialization) andByteFrame(COBS + CRC framing) are designed to work together as a complete data-link layer for MCUs.
| Library | Description | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| ADS1115 | Driver for the popular ADS1115 4×16-bit ADC. | |
| MCP23017 | Sleek, efficient driver for the MCP23017 I/O expander. |
| Library | Description | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| SettingsManagerESP32 | An abstraction over the ESP32 NVS library to make persistent storage easier. | |
| AdvancedCLI | A modern command-line parsing library with zero dynamic allocation. |

