Dojo Five
Small Minnesota firm rebuilding the firmware lifecycle around automated CI/CD
What is Dojo Five?
Dojo Five was founded in 2018 and is based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with a team of roughly 26 people. Rather than positioning as a general embedded firm, the company markets itself specifically around modernizing the firmware development lifecycle: automated builds, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and monitoring pipelines that most older firmware vendors still handle manually. That focus means Dojo Five is a better fit for a team that already has a codebase and needs tooling and process discipline than for a from-scratch product build.
Dojo Five works primarily with clients in Industrial equipment, Medical devices, Consumer electronics sectors. Its primary differentiator is: Built specifically around bringing modern CI/CD, automated testing, and monitoring pipelines to embedded firmware teams.
Dojo Five tech stack and services
| Service area |
|---|
| Firmware Development |
| Functional Safety |
| Firmware Consulting |
Dojo Five pricing
Short answer: Dojo Five uses a firmware engineering and devops-style tooling consulting pricing approach. Minimum engagement is not publicly disclosed; a discovery call is required.
| Engagement model | Typical range | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed project | From not disclosed | Well-defined scope |
| Dedicated team | Variable; depends on team size | Large programmes or team augmentation |
Dojo Five pros and cons
| Advantages | Things to consider |
|---|---|
| +Specific focus on firmware CI/CD and automated testing addresses a gap most other firms on this list treat as an afterthought | -Team of 26 limits capacity for very large, multi-year programs |
| +Team of 26 keeps every engagement senior-engineer-led rather than staffed with junior generalists | -Founded in 2018, so its public track record is shorter than firms with decades of delivery history |
| +Modern tooling background reduces the manual regression-testing burden common at older firmware vendors |
Dojo Five vs alternatives
How Dojo Five compares to the other top Firmware Development companies.
| Company | Best for | Key difference | Rating | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lemberg Solutions | RTOS firmware needing secure boot and direct chip-vendor... | Direct NXP, STMicroelectronics, and Microchip partnerships paired with an in-house hardware lab for board bring-up and HIL testing | 4.9 | Full comparison |
| Conclusive Engineering | Hard real-time Linux and FreeBSD firmware from a... | Founder-led team specializing in low-level debugging and hard real-time optimization rather than general embedded staffing | 4.7 | Full comparison |
| Witekio | Device makers needing OTA and low-power wireless firmware. | Two decades of BSP and RTOS delivery narrowed specifically around secure OTA updates and low-power wireless connectivity | 4.6 | Full comparison |
| Cardinal Peak | IoT products combining embedded firmware with video or... | Signal-processing depth in video and audio firmware alongside standard embedded and hardware engineering | 4.6 | Full comparison |
| Product Creation Studio | Hardware startups needing industrial design and firmware together. | Combines industrial design and mechanical engineering with firmware under one roof, rather than firmware alone | 4.5 | Full comparison |
| DE Design Works | Industrial and medical products needing PCB design with... | Pairs custom PCB hardware design with firmware development for industrial, medical, and military clients | 4.4 | Full comparison |
| DeepSea Developments | Early-stage hardware startups building a first connected product. | Silicon Valley boutique sized specifically for early-stage hardware startups rather than enterprise programs | 4.4 | Full comparison |
| Apriorit | Security-sensitive firmware needing kernel and driver-level expertise. | Security-first engineering culture applied down to kernel, driver, and bootloader-level firmware work | 4.4 | Full comparison |
| WebbyLab | IoT products needing firmware plus edge and cloud... | Covers device firmware, edge computing, and cloud dashboards as one delivery team instead of separate vendors | 4.3 | Full comparison |
| InTechHouse | Regulated-industry hardware needing electronics plus embedded AI. | Publicly listed engineering firm with an internal R&D incubator feeding new embedded AI and industrial data capabilities | 4.3 | Full comparison |
| needCode | IoT firmware needing built-in cybersecurity compliance work. | Cybersecurity and compliance capability built directly into the embedded engineering practice rather than outsourced | 4.3 | Full comparison |
| Embien Technologies | Consumer or industrial devices needing custom embedded GUI... | Builds its own GUI library and IoT device-management platform, giving it deeper tooling than a pure services vendor | 4.2 | Full comparison |
| Indeema Software | Mid-size IoT programs needing firmware plus mobile and... | Dedicated IoT and IIoT division spanning firmware through mobile app and cloud infrastructure delivery | 4.1 | Full comparison |
| USA Firmware | Hardware startups needing firmware, FPGA, and Linux from... | Managed design services blending electrical engineering, firmware, FPGA, and embedded Linux for connected-product companies | 4.2 | Full comparison |
| Electrobit Technology | Budget-conscious IoT hardware needing electronics plus firmware. | Electronics design and embedded firmware delivered together from a single India-based team | 4.0 | Full comparison |
| Promwad | Hardware programs needing firmware plus FPGA and manufacturing... | Independent design house spanning firmware, FPGA programming, and hardware through manufacturing support | 4.2 | Full comparison |
| Softeq | Full-stack connected products needing firmware, hardware, and apps... | Full-stack delivery spanning firmware, hardware, and web/mobile applications from one vendor since 1997 | 4.1 | Full comparison |
| SaM Solutions | Enterprises wanting an established IT generalist with embedded... | Three-decade-old IT services firm with an embedded and IoT practice inside a much broader software portfolio | 4.0 | Full comparison |
| Timesys | Embedded Linux security hardening and long-term platform maintenance. | One of the original embedded Linux specialists, now backed by Lynx Software Technologies' broader platform resources | 4.1 | Full comparison |
| ARi | Large industrial programs needing firmware inside a broader... | Industrial engineering scale spanning mechanical design, manufacturing, and embedded firmware in one organization | 4.0 | Full comparison |
| Sii Poland | Large enterprise programs needing hundreds of embedded engineers. | One of Central Europe's largest engineering and IT services firms, with embedded systems as a dedicated practice | 3.9 | Full comparison |
| N-iX | Enterprises wanting a large generalist outsourcer with embedded... | Broad European software outsourcer with a 15-plus year IoT and embedded engineering track record | 4.0 | Full comparison |
| Intellias | Automotive and navigation programs needing a large embedded... | Large Ukraine-founded IT outsourcer with a strong automotive and navigation software practice | 4.0 | Full comparison |
| L&T Technology Services | The largest enterprise embedded programs needing conglomerate-scale resources. | Publicly listed engineering R&D subsidiary of the Larsen & Toubro conglomerate, with embedded systems as one major business line | 3.9 | Full comparison |
| Bright Wolf | Industrial IoT firmware backed by a large systems-integrator... | Founder-built industrial IoT specialist now backed by Cognizant's much larger systems-integration resources | 4.2 | Full comparison |
| Synapse Product Development | Consumer and healthcare hardware needing firmware plus certification... | Full product-development scope covering firmware, mechanical design, and certification under one engineering team | 4.3 | Full comparison |
| Bresslergroup (Delve) | Consumer and medical hardware needing decades-proven industrial design... | More than five decades of product-design history, now operating as Delve after a 2021 merger | 4.2 | Full comparison |
| Very | Distributed-delivery IoT programs needing firmware plus data and... | Fully distributed IoT team combining firmware delivery with machine-learning-driven data solutions | 4.2 | Full comparison |
| Rigado | Commercial IoT deployments needing pre-certified BLE modules and... | Pre-certified low-power wireless modules paired with edge computing and firmware for large-scale commercial IoT rollouts | 4.3 | Full comparison |
Dojo Five FAQ
What is Dojo Five?
Small Minnesota firm rebuilding the firmware lifecycle around automated CI/CD
How much does Dojo Five charge?
Dojo Five uses firmware engineering and devops-style tooling consulting pricing. Minimum engagement is not publicly disclosed. A discovery call is required to get project-specific quotes.
What tech stack does Dojo Five use?
Dojo Five works with C, C++, On-premise and cloud CI/CD, Automated hardware test rigs. Primary industries served include Industrial equipment, Medical devices, Consumer electronics.
Is Dojo Five right for enterprise?
Teams wanting automated firmware CI/CD instead of manual builds. 26 team size. Key consideration: Team of 26 limits capacity for very large, multi-year programs.
What are the best Dojo Five alternatives?
The best alternatives to Dojo Five depend on your use case. Top options are:
- Lemberg Solutions: direct nxp, stmicroelectronics, and microchip partnerships paired with an in-house hardware lab for board bring-up and hil testing
- Conclusive Engineering: founder-led team specializing in low-level debugging and hard real-time optimization rather than general embedded staffing
- Witekio: two decades of bsp and rtos delivery narrowed specifically around secure ota updates and low-power wireless connectivity
Compare Dojo Five with other Firmware Development companies
Verify all details directly with Dojo Five before making a decision.