Software Engineer - Scientific Applications & Engineering Tools

Software Engineer – Scientific Applications & Engineering Tools

Location: Palo Alto, California or Albany, New York (On-site)

Industry: Advanced Semiconductors / Scientific Software / Engineering Applications

Company: Confidential, Stealth-Mode Venture

Recruiting Firm: Leadingedge Technology Search

The Opportunity

We are conducting a confidential search for a well-funded, stealth-mode semiconductor technology company backed by top-tier investors.

The company is developing a next-generation semiconductor technology platform and expanding its scientific software and engineering applications organization. We are seeking an experienced Software Engineer to develop robust, scalable applications, dashboards, and software tools supporting advanced engineering, research, simulation, fabrication, and testing.

This is a hands-on software engineering opportunity for an accomplished developer with strong expertise in Python, C++, Rust, or Julia, combined with experience building user-facing scientific and engineering applications.

The successful candidate will work closely with scientists, physicists, semiconductor engineers, and computational engineering teams to transform research prototypes and custom technical code into reliable, production-quality software used daily by engineering organizations.

This position offers significant technical ownership, the opportunity to influence the development of advanced engineering software, and meaningful equity in an early-stage technology company.

What You'll Do

• Design, develop, and maintain scientific and engineering software applications supporting advanced semiconductor research and development.
• Transform research prototypes, custom scripts, and experimental code into robust, maintainable, production-quality software applications.
• Build interactive dashboards, visualization tools, and user-facing applications for engineering and scientific workflows.
• Collaborate with design, fabrication, characterization, and test engineers to understand technical requirements and develop practical software solutions.
• Develop software tools integrating computational models, simulation results, experimental measurements, and engineering data.
• Build dashboards and user interfaces for laboratory instrumentation, test systems, and engineering measurement platforms.
• Develop software plugins, extensions, and integrations for commercial and custom engineering applications.
• Integrate scientific software with existing CAD, EDA, simulation, and engineering design environments.
• Design and implement software architectures supporting reliable data processing, visualization, analysis, and workflow automation.
• Establish software engineering best practices, including version control, automated testing, code reviews, documentation, and release management.
• Improve software reliability, maintainability, performance, and usability across engineering applications.
• Profile, troubleshoot, and optimize computationally intensive software and numerical algorithms.
• Develop application interfaces and data workflows that support traceability from engineering design through fabrication, testing, and manufacturing.
• Collaborate with computational science and infrastructure engineering teams to deploy and maintain software applications.
• Review code, mentor technical contributors, and help scientists and engineers improve software development practices.
• Support software packaging, deployment, version management, and continuous integration and delivery.
• Work directly with engineering users to troubleshoot applications, implement improvements, and ensure software meets operational requirements.

Qualifications

Required

• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, or a closely related technical discipline.
• Demonstrated experience developing and delivering software applications, dashboards, or engineering tools used regularly by scientists, researchers, or engineering teams.
• Strong programming expertise in one or more of the following languages: Python, C++, Rust, or Julia.
• Experience building user-facing software applications, web applications, dashboards, or interactive engineering tools.
• Demonstrated ability to transform research prototypes, scientific scripts, or experimental code into robust, maintainable software.
• Strong understanding of software engineering principles, including modular architecture, version control, automated testing, code reviews, and maintainability.
• Experience developing software that processes, analyzes, or visualizes technical, scientific, or engineering data.
• Working knowledge of numerical methods, mathematical modeling, physics, or computational engineering concepts.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with scientists and engineers to translate technical requirements into reliable software applications.
• Strong debugging, performance optimization, and software troubleshooting capabilities.
• Strong analytical and technical problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration capabilities.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, highly innovative startup environment.

Preferred Experience

Candidates with experience in one or more of the following areas are particularly encouraged to apply:

• Scientific computing and engineering software development
• Python-based scientific applications and numerical computing
• C++, Rust, or Julia for high-performance technical applications
• Interactive dashboards using Plotly Dash, Streamlit, Panel, or Grafana
• Web application development using React, TypeScript, FastAPI, or comparable frameworks
• Scientific data visualization, analysis, and interactive modeling tools
• Software applications for semiconductor design, fabrication, characterization, or testing
• CAD, EDA, layout, and simulation software integrations
• Plugins, extensions, and APIs for commercial engineering software
• Laboratory instrumentation software, test automation, and measurement dashboards
• Real-time data visualization and instrument control interfaces
• Numerical algorithms, scientific modeling, and computational optimization
• High-performance computing (HPC), GPU computing, and parallel processing
• Software application architecture, usability, and user experience design
• Cloud-based application deployment and containerization
• Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD development workflows
• Software packaging, automated testing, and release management
• AI-powered engineering applications, large language models, and AI agents
• Scientific software development in national laboratories, research institutions, or advanced technology companies
• Open-source software contributions with established users
• Experience developing technical software in early-stage or rapidly growing technology companies

Why Consider This Opportunity?

• Join a well-funded, stealth-mode semiconductor technology company backed by top-tier investors.
• Help develop the scientific software applications supporting a next-generation semiconductor technology platform.
• Take ownership of engineering applications from initial research prototypes through production deployment and daily engineering use.
• Work alongside accomplished engineers, scientists, physicists, and technology innovators.
• Influence critical software architecture, engineering workflows, and scientific computing capabilities.
• Build tools that directly accelerate semiconductor research, engineering development, and experimental validation.
• Play a key role in establishing scalable software engineering practices within a growing technical organization.
• Competitive compensation, comprehensive benefits, and meaningful early-stage equity.
• Opportunity for significant technical impact and long-term career growth.

Compensation & Benefits

Competitive base salary commensurate with experience and seniority, meaningful equity participation, comprehensive health benefits, paid time off, and additional benefits.

Confidential Search: Leadingedge Technology Search is managing this search on behalf of a privately held semiconductor technology company. Additional company information will be shared with qualified candidates during the interview process

Stealth-Mode Start-Up backed by Tier 1 investors