Eric Steen

Hardware & Firmware Engineer
📧 eric@steen.run 🌐 Grand Forks, ND

Professional Summary

Versatile engineer with hands-on experience spanning embedded firmware, hardware diagnostics, and infrastructure automation. Professional background includes PIC microcontroller programming, I2C system integration, and circuit-level repair, plus recent work building CI/CD pipelines, telemetry systems (Grafana/Prometheus), and automated testing frameworks. Brings a full-stack perspective to system design—understanding both the hardware constraints and the operational requirements that make products successful in production.

Experience

Lead Repair Technician

Core Scientific • Hardware Engineering Team • Grand Forks • Feb 2021 - Sep 2024
  • Performed circuit-level diagnostics and repair of I2C-based systems, including trace repair and component-level soldering
  • Programmed and configured PIC microcontrollers for sensor applications and hardware testing
  • Developed automation tooling in Bash to streamline diagnostic workflows, reducing system downtime by 20%
  • Led cross-functional infrastructure upgrade projects involving dozens of team members, delivering under budget and ahead of schedule
  • Executed PCB rework and component replacement on high-density boards using precision soldering techniques

Site Reliability Engineer

Core Scientific • Grand Forks • Sep 2024 - Present
  • Deployed observability infrastructure using Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus for system monitoring and log aggregation
  • Conducted integration testing for new software deployments in Kubernetes environments
  • Developed error tracking methodologies using Datadog to identify and prevent potential system failures

Projects

ESP32 Motor Driver (C/C++)

  • Designed and implemented motor control firmware for ESP32 microcontroller
  • Developed PWM-based speed control and real-time feedback systems
  • Implemented communication protocols for external control interfaces

For detailed writeups of technical projects, visit steen.run/blog

Education

Computer Science (75% Complete)

Relevant Coursework: Data Structures, Computer Architecture, Embedded Systems, Algorithms

Skills

C/C++ Python Bash Linux/Unix ESP32 PIC Microcontrollers I2C Motor Control Circuit Analysis Soldering Trace Repair Oscilloscope Multimeter Git Docker Kubernetes