Protocol Engineer

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We are looking for

The Open Home Foundation is looking for a

We are looking for

The Open Home Foundation is looking for a Protocol Engineer based in Europe to join our Ecosystem department. This department is responsible for the development of all the projects except Home Assistant under the OHF umbrella, including ESPHome, Voice, Music Assistant, the Open Home Protocols (Zigbee/Z-Wave/Matter), our collaborations with other projects like WLED or Zigbee2MQTT, and any others that join us in the future.

The Open Home Protocols within OHF (Z-Wave, Zigbee, Matter and also a bit of Bluetooth) are developed internally with resources from OHF, where each protocol has a Tech Lead driving the protocol’s backend implementation and ensuring we keep up to date with spec changes etc. Next to that Protocol-specific backend, each protocol has an integration in Home Assistant to translate the protocol’s specific models/api/backend into Home Assistant devices and entities.

As a Protocol Engineer you will work closely together with the Tech Leads of the protocols and other members of the Ecosystem and Home Assistant departments to ensure the optimal integration of the protocols within Home Assistant, for example by writing discovery schemas for mapping protocol (or even device) specific datapoints to Home Assistant entities, help debugging issues, supporting users and test devices we receive from manufacturers applying for the Works with Home Assistant Program.

You are a good fit for this role if you already have experience with one or more of the Open Home protocols supported by OHF and how they are constructed. For example Matter and Zigbee where you have nodes, endpoints, clusters and attributes or Z-Wave with an equivalent schema with \”command classes\” (rather than \”clusters\”) and \”properties\”. Because these protocols are very similar in base and also structured and developed in a similar way within Home Assistant, supporting the other protocols will feel natural when already familiar with one of them.

Preferably you already understand the code styling, iteration cycle and other patterns from the Home Assistant project while picking up various tasks for the various Protocol integrations. This is primarily (async) Python3 code but it may also involve a frontend element which you pick up yourself or together with the frontend team. You work closely with the members (and their community) of the various projects within Ecosystem to identify and describe work that needs to be picked up in the right priority, accounting for the HA release cycle.

What You Are Going To Do

• Implement new features and fix (and prevent) bugs within the Home Assistant. integration component of the various Open Home Protocols: Matter, Zigbee, Z-Wave and secondary also Thread and Bluetooth.
• Testing of devices that are sent by manufacturers as part of the “Works with Home Assistant” certification program.
• Help with supporting users on our support platforms such as the Github issue tracker and discord.
• Help debugging/diagnosing potential issues with device support for smart home protocols within the protocol’s backend and/or Home Assistant integration.
• Collaborate with the team members of the various protocols and other members within the Ecosystem department.
• Help prioritize and describe tasks on the project board together with team members and product management.
• Review code from other team members and community contributors.

What You Need To Have

• 3+ years of experience working in back-end development.
• 1+ years of experience working with (async) Python 3.
• Experience with Git and Github.
• Experience with at least one of the smart home protocol standards.
• Professional Fluency in English: Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.

It would be great if you also have

• A passion for smart homes and automation.
• Experience as a Home Assistant user.
• Contributed code to Home Assistant before.
• Contributed code to (one of) the Open Home Protocol integration within Home Assistant.

What we offer You

The Open Home Foundation is a fully remote organization that uses Remote to employ people from all over the world. You will be a normal salaried employee in your country.

This is a full-time position for 40 hours per week. Because we are a fully remote company, there is no fixed schedule. For the purpose of team communication, we do try to ensure at least 3 hours of overlap in the workday. You will report to the Ecosystem Lead, who is based in the Netherlands.

Core to the establishment of the Open Home Foundation was the well-being of the people building the future of the smart home. We will provide all the benefits required by the country you reside in. However, we also want to make sure all our employees, regardless of country of origin, get at least a minimal set of benefits, including:

• Five weeks (twenty-five days) of paid time off.
• Fourteen days of paid sick leave if your country/laws treat them as unpaid.
• Six weeks of paid and six weeks of unpaid parental leave to be used in the first year after birth. We will provide the missing days if your country/laws do not provide such compensation.
• A budget for your work hardware once you start. After three years, you may keep this equipment for personal use.
• An annual smart home budget to ensure you keep up-to-date with the latest that smart homes offer.
• A 50% contribution to your internet connection fee at your home workspace.
• One day every two weeks to work on your personal projects.
• If you are currently working on Home Assistant-related side projects, you can spend work time maintaining them.

When first offering a position to a new member, the Open Home Foundation aims to provide a total compensation package that matches the 75th percentile for the new hire\’s role, seniority, and local market rates. For a Protocol Engineer in our primary operating countries, the approximate yearly compensation will be the following:

• Netherlands: 52.000 – 65.000 EUR.
• UK: 45.000 – 58.000 GBP.
• Spain: 43.000 – 53.000 EUR.
• Portugal: 40.000 – 52.000 EUR.
• Other countries: compensation can be discussed during the first interview.

These figures may be adjusted based on experience, qualifications, and work hours.

About Us

The Open Home Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Switzerland, with the objective of fighting for the fundamental principles of privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart homes. It does this by supporting the development of open-source projects, and open connectivity and communication standards.

A big part of this is Home Assistant, the biggest open-source project in number of contributors, but the Open Home Foundation also owns or collaborates with other projects important to promoting privacy, choice, and sustainability in the smart home, like:

• Open hardware tools (e.g., ESPHome, ESP Web Tools).
• Open standards (e.g., Python Matter Server, Z-Wave JS, ZigPy, BTHome, Improv Wi-Fi).
• Open voice (e.g., Rhasspy, Wyoming Protocol, Piper).
• Music Assistant.

The recruitment process

• Apply for the role.
• Our HR team will review your application with the hiring manager.
• Interview with HR.
• Technical assessment.
• Interview with the team.
• Offer.
• Join our team!

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Engineering and Information Technology

• Industries

  Non-profit Organizations

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