CLI Systems is a principal-led product development firm. We take electronic products from concept through engineering prototypes, production prototypes, and into manufacturing. Firmware, hardware, embedded Linux, mechanical integration, certification, and production support, delivered as a turn-key program when that's what you need.
When a project moves to volume, we partner with ISO 9001 certified manufacturers running state-of-the-art SMT and assembly lines. You get senior engineering on every hour billed, and real production capability when the design is ready to ship.
CLI Systems is intentionally structured around two facts about modern electronics development:
The hard part is the engineering. Firmware architecture, MCU selection, Linux BSPs, PCB design, debugging a system that won't boot at 2 AM the week before a customer demo. This work needs a principal engineer's attention, not a project manager handing it off to whoever has bandwidth.
The volume part is a solved problem. Once a design is locked, building 500 or 50,000 units is a manufacturing engineering problem, and there are world-class contract manufacturers who do exactly that, every day, with ISO 9001 quality systems, multi-line SMT capacity, and full assembly and test capability.
CLI does the engineering. Our manufacturing partners do the volume. We handle the integration between the two: design for manufacturability, test fixtures, first-article verification, production firmware programming, and RMA root-cause.
For prototypes and runs up to about 20 units, we can build in-house. Above that, the work goes to manufacturing partners we've vetted and worked with for years.
Most engineering firms staff projects with a mix of senior and junior engineers, with the senior engineer's name on the proposal and junior engineers doing most of the actual work. That model exists because the firm needs to keep its bench utilized. It doesn't exist because it's better for the client.
CLI is structured the other way around. The principal engineer is the engineer. That means:
This model is only viable because of two decades of accumulated experience across the full embedded stack. It would not work for a generalist. It works for CLI because the work CLI takes on is work CLI has done before.
Andrew Gaylo founded CLI Systems in April 2012. Before that, he has years of experience across Seagate, Trimble Navigation, battery system startups, and Denso Electronics, working on hard drive controllers, GPS telematics for construction equipment, high-voltage lithium battery management systems, and automotive electronics.
Linux developer since 2001. Embedded engineer since 2006. The work has stayed close to the metal with a focus on building reliable products the whole way: firmware, BSPs, drivers, and systems that have to keep running long after the demo.
100% US-based engineering. Castle Rock, Colorado and Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Our manufacturing partners are both domestic and offshore depending on the program's volume, cost, and compliance requirements. We select per-project, never one-size-fits-all.
If you have a product to bring to market, an existing program that needs senior engineering help, or a firmware codebase that has to keep running, the fastest path is a direct conversation with the engineer who will do the work.