Claude Benedict Busole

Embedded Engineer with hands-on experience spanning firmware development, hardware bring-up, and system validation. Proven ability to bridge hardware and software layers — from PCB-level debugging and power sequencing to real-time firmware in C on ARM Cortex microcontrollers. Expanding expertise in AI/ML integration, Edge AI/TinyML inference on constrained devices, and desktop software development with Qt.

Experienced with FreeRTOS, bare-metal architectures, communication protocols (I²C, SPI, UART, CAN, BLE, Wi-Fi), and machine learning frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn). Committed to reliability-first development practices — defensive coding, thorough testing, and fail-safe design — particularly suited to safety-critical and non-recallable embedded products.

Embedded Engineer (Contract) at Iris Power LP – A Qualitrol Company (2025-10 – Present)

• Developing and validating firmware in embedded C for a next-generation ARM/FPGA-based partial discharge data acquisition system used in high-voltage industrial environments.
• Writing bring-up firmware and structured test cases for the third hardware iteration; leading first-time functional testing of legacy firmware on new board revisions.
• Performing low-level bring-up debugging: power sequencing, clock configuration, reset behavior, and peripheral initialization (I²C, SPI, UART, USB).
• Collaborating with mechanical, hardware, and software engineers in design reviews; translating hardware findings into firmware fixes and iterative improvements.
• Implementing defensive firmware patterns (error handling, watchdog timers, fault recovery) suited to industrial systems that cannot be easily recalled or serviced.
• Prototyping a Qt-based desktop diagnostic tool for real-time visualization of partial discharge waveforms and device status, improving engineer productivity during bring-up sessions.
• Exploring TFLite Micro integration for on-device anomaly detection in partial discharge signal classification, reducing reliance on cloud-side inference.

Lead Embedded Engineer at Techy8 (2022-02 – 2025-02)

• Led end-to-end firmware development and validation for IoT embedded systems integrating GPS, IMU, and environmental sensors, ensuring real-time reliability across field deployments.
• Designed and implemented Kalman Filter-based sensor fusion algorithms, improving navigation positioning accuracy by 15%.
• Integrated a TensorFlow Lite Micro inference engine onto ESP32 targets for on-device anomaly detection, eliminating cloud round-trip latency and enabling offline operation in the field.
• Built Python data pipelines to collect, label, and preprocess sensor telemetry for training scikit-learn and PyTorch models; deployed optimized ONNX models to edge nodes via OTA update.
• Developed LLM API-driven diagnostic assistant (OpenAI API) as an internal tool, reducing first-response debug time for field support tickets by automating log summarization and fault triage.
• Developed and validated communication firmware for I²C, SPI, and UART protocols across sensor networks; conducted EMC/EMI testing to ensure signal integrity in noisy IoT environments.
• Architected bare-metal and FreeRTOS firmware for resource-constrained microcontrollers, managing task scheduling, interrupt-driven data pipelines, and low-power sleep/wake cycles.
• Mentored junior engineers; communicated firmware architecture and debug findings to cross-functional and non-technical stakeholders.

Junior Computer Engineer at Intellect Company Limited (2020-09 – 2021-10)

• Assisted in hardware testing and firmware verification for smart meter embedded systems under senior engineer supervision.
• Performed data collection and statistical analysis from sensor networks to validate system performance and calibration accuracy.
• Supported hardware integration and documented test procedures for sensor calibration processes.

Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Engineering – Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology (2016-11 – 2021-12)