Richard Joy

Senior Firmware Engineer with 8+ years building production-grade embedded and IoT systems in C/C++, ESP32, and FreeRTOS. Delivered 25+ field deployments across agritech automation and connected-device platforms, owning firmware architecture, hardware integration, and production support end-to-end. Architected a reusable multi-product firmware platform (6+ products on a single CMake codebase) that cut new product development time by 40%.

Deep expertise in embedded networking and custom protocol design — I2C master-slave frameworks, multi-bus arbitration, Modbus RTU/TCP, and distributed device coordination. Track record leading cross-functional teams and taking products from concept through certification and mass production.

Founder & Lead Firmware Engineer at Teqard Labs Pvt Ltd (2017-01 – Present)

Concept and early development began 2017; incorporated as a Pvt Ltd company in 2019. Built part-time alongside a full-time engineering role at Kefas Softwares (2018–2021); full-time focus on Teqard from 2021.

• ufarms.io — Embedded IoT Platform for Precision Agriculture (2024–Present): sole firmware engineer and product owner, first commit through field deployment. Defined product scope for 6 agritech controllers (drip irrigation, farm automation, mushroom environment control, grow lighting, hydroponics, multi-mode timers), then architected and built the entire embedded codebase.
• Designed a modular ESP-IDF/FreeRTOS architecture — ~70 composable C modules (33 feature apps, 9 hardware drivers, 8 MQTT topic handlers, shared comm/config infrastructure) — composed via CMake into 6 distinct product firmware targets from a single repository.
• Built three distinct ESP32 scheduling engines across the platform: cyclic pulsed ON/OFF within a daily window, non-cyclic start-time + fixed-duration (with weekday masks and power-failure recovery, used on drip irrigation), and start-to-end continuous windows with midnight-spanning support (used on lumino lighting control) — all backed by esp_timer, RTC, and SPIFFS-persisted config.
• Delivered 7-zone scheduled drip irrigation with battery-backed RTC power-failure recovery, and safety-critical dry-run pump protection using PZEM-004T current sensing over UART — calibration state machine, automatic shutdown on under/overcurrent, and MQTT status reporting to prevent motor damage.
• Built MQTT communication over TLS-PSK with topic-based message routing and JSON command/config/telemetry handling; implemented dual-path Wi-Fi provisioning (BLE GATT + captive HTTP AP) with trial-connect validation for zero-touch field setup by non-technical installers.
• Implemented sensor-driven climate automation with threshold-based actuator rules and hot-reload on config change; delivered HTTPS OTA updates with rollback and progress reporting over MQTT, architected to scale to 10,000+ connected field devices.
• Bench-validated analog sensor integration (EC/pH via ADC lookup tables) using an oscilloscope to verify signal waveform behavior alongside the hardware engineer; traced early-stage I2C bus communication with a logic analyzer during peripheral bring-up.
• Built custom production flashing tools and factory partition programming for per-device credential provisioning at scale, plus dedicated test modules for pre-deployment hardware validation; performed field deployment debugging across 25+ live installations delivered on schedule.
• Smart Rental Locker Platform — distributed firmware coordinating 24 endpoints per controller via real-time MQTT, with mobile app and backend integration; sub-second response latency in production. Designed the custom I2C master-slave bus architecture (PCF8574/PCF8575 expanders, multiplexers) with arbitration, fault detection, and graceful recovery for reliable state sync across all 24 endpoints.
• Held overall product ownership across Teqard Labs — accountable for the full product lifecycle from testing through deployment, coordinating the hardware team, the firmware workstream (self), and the backend/frontend software team on every client engagement.
• Also led two additional client engagements end-to-end as project owner — requirement collection through production delivery: (1) Medical Device (AI-Based Plyori Detection System) — owned client engagement and project management: requirement collection, milestone and deliverable planning, and cross-team coordination (hardware, electronics, firmware, software) through regulatory certification and into mass production of 5,000+ units. (2) Assistive Communication Device (Deaf & Mute) — owned client engagement and delivery from requirement gathering through working prototype, coordinating hardware and software development; concept to demo in under 3 months.
• Provided hands-on firmware debugging and development support as an external technical resource for partner companies and incubator projects, including a UWB-based keyfob system and other embedded prototypes.
• Resolved critical production failures across the platform: heap corruption under multi-core FreeRTOS load, MQTT buffer overflow during LTE reconnection storms (diagnosed via Wireshark MQTT/TCP packet capture), RTOS scheduling conflicts causing timer drift, I2C bus lockups under electrical noise, and synchronisation bugs across distributed multi-node deployments.
• Led cross-functional teams of 8+ engineers across firmware, hardware, electronics, backend, and frontend; established code review standards, debugging protocols, and release processes adopted across all projects. Managed 15+ client engagements from requirement gathering through delivery.

Linux Software Engineer at Kefas Softwares Pvt Ltd (2018-08 – 2021-07)

Full-time role, concurrent with early-stage (part-time) development of Teqard Labs.

• Built high-performance async backend systems in C++14/17 using Boost.ASIO, multithreaded socket architecture, and concurrent message pipelines for real-time options trading execution.
• Maintained production Linux services with performance profiling, memory optimisation, and root-cause analysis — the C++ and Linux systems foundation applied throughout subsequent embedded work.
• Led the C++11 to C++14 migration, improving maintainability and runtime performance.

Data Specialist – Ab Initio Developer at IBM (2017-12 – 2018-07)

• Developed enterprise-scale ETL workflows using Ab Initio supporting an Oracle-to-Hadoop migration for large financial datasets.
• Built data transformation, validation, and quality-check pipelines processing millions of records across distributed batch jobs.
• Worked within a Linux-based development environment — shell scripting, job scheduling, and Unix command-line toolchain fundamentals.

B.Tech in Computer Science Engineering – Mahatma Gandhi University (2017)