Senior Software Engineer, Instrumentation

Exthymic

• $150K — $200K *
Healthcare
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or equivalent experience
  • 7+ years experience in software development for regulated instruments or devices
  • Proficiency in modern C++, Rust, and/or Python for both firmware and host applications
  • Experience with closed-loop control systems and digital twin modeling
  • Safety-critical engineering mindset focusing on fault handling and traceability
  • Ability to collaborate with cross-disciplinary engineering teams

Responsibilities

  • Shape the instrument software architecture from firmware to user interface
  • Develop control software for an autonomous cell-therapy manufacturing process
  • Integrate host software with microcontroller-driven hardware components
  • Manage data pipelines for process traceability from acquisition to record
  • Enable thorough testing across multiple development stages and subsystems
  • Establish software development lifecycle practices, including CI/CD and release management
  • Develop and maintain documentation within regulatory standards

Benefits

  • Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
  • 401k match program for retirement savings
  • Optional accident and term life insurance benefits
Full Job Description
About You

You are a senior software engineer who has built instrument or device software in a regulated environment, along with the documentation and risk analysis that go with it. You design for failure conditions, and you are effective where the hardware is still being designed and the requirements are still evolving. You work well alongside electrical, mechanical, optical, and bioprocess engineers, bringing up new hardware and turning their process knowledge into software the instrument runs on its own.
Key Responsibilities
  • Shape the instrument software architecture - Contribute to the design of the software stack for the instrument, from firmware through instrument control, data, and the operator interface.
  • Develop the instrument control software - Build the software that runs an autonomous cell-therapy manufacturing process: recipe execution, state-machine control, and the safety behavior. Design for a process that will keep changing as the science matures.
  • Integrate with hardware - Write the host-side software that communicates with the instrument's microcontrollers, bringing its sensors, actuators, and imaging into the control system. Work at the bench with the engineers who designed the hardware, and contribute to firmware where it helps.
  • Manage the instrument's data - Build the pipelines that capture, store, and serve process data so that every run is traceable from raw acquisition to final record.
  • Enable testing across development - Support engineers and scientists in exercising their subsystems and processes on the instrument: instrumented experiments, simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and application testing as the process comes together.
  • Establish robust SDLC and testing practices - Design, build, and maintain software test harnesses, automated CI/CD pipelines, code review workflows, and release management processes to ensure high code quality and reliable deployments.
  • Develop within the regulatory requirements - Work under a regulated software lifecycle and help author the documentation, risk analysis, and audit trails that go with it.

Requirements
  • Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience.
  • Typically 7+ years developing software for instruments, medical devices, robotics, autonomous vehicles, or laboratory automation, including time under a regulated software development lifecycle.
  • Strong modern C++, rust, and/or Python, spanning microcontroller firmware to host applications.
  • Experience with closed-loop control of physical hardware, heirarchical state-machine and behavior tree execution architectures, digital twin or in silico modeling of physical behaviors, and robotics middleware (e.g., ROS 2).
  • A safety-critical engineering mindset: fault handling, safe-state design, and traceability.
  • Comfort working with engineers in other disciplines at the hardware/software interface.
Preferred Qualifications
  • Experience with regulatory submissions or design history files.
  • Implementation of 21 CFR Part 11 / GMP data-integrity controls.
  • Real-time image processing or in-loop ML inference.
  • Simulation of fluidics instrumentation (e.g. sensors, valves, pumps)
  • Microcontroller firmware development, including bringing up new hardware at the bench.
  • Background in cell therapy, bioprocessing, or life-science instrumentation.
  • Experience in deploying AI agents across engineering workflows, including designing guardrails for safe agent operation.
  • Early-stage startup experience.

Benefits

Competitive salary and benefits package, including Medical, Dental, Vision, and 401k match.

Salary Range: $150,000 - $200,000, commensurate with experience

Benefits: We offer our employees comprehensive benefits, including medical, vision, and dental coverage, as well as retirement savings plans. Optional benefits include accident and term life offerings.

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