Senior/Staff Software Engineer - C++

About SirenOpt

At SirenOpt®, we are building the manufacturing intelligence layer for advanced materials. We help manufacturers visualize, understand, and control the material behavior that determines yield, performance, and safety across energy, aerospace, automotive, electronics, and semiconductor applications. 

We are working on this problem because advanced materials are becoming more critical and more complex, but the tools used to manufacture them have not kept pace. Manufacturers still lack real-time visibility into the small variations that shape quality on the line. We care because those invisible variations cause scrap, waste energy and materials, create higher costs, inconsistent product performance, and introduce avoidable safety risks. 

We developed PlasmaSens, our manufacturing intelligence platform, to close that visibility gap and to lay the foundation for truly autonomous manufacturing. 

We are uniquely suited to solve this problem because our expertise and our platform connect material science, plasma physics, machine learning, and manufacturing in one system.  The same core technology works in-line, at-line, and off-line, and across form factors ranging from electrodes and wafers to 3D components. That flexibility lets us meet manufacturers where they are and carry insight from the lab into mass production. 

We have deployed multiple PlasmaSens products with customers and collaborators across the United States, Japan, Germany, and Taiwan.  We pair that real-world experience with support from leading US, European, and Japanese venture investors, the National Science Foundation, the California Energy Commission, and the Department of Energy.  Our combination of differentiated technology, manufacturing experience, and global scientific and industry partnerships gives us the foundation to solve material variability at scale. 

About the job

Job Title: Senior/Staff Software Engineer - C++

Location: On-Site (San Leandro, CA)

Job Type: Full-Time

Role Overview

SirenOpt is seeking a Senior / Staff Software Engineer to design and build the high-performance C++ and systems software that powers our manufacturing intelligence platform. In this role, you will help ensure the reliability, performance, and scalability of SirenOpt's software as it runs on real customer production lines, while contributing to the architecture and technical foundations needed for a growing commercial product.

Working closely with firmware, hardware, and application engineering teams across every phase of product development, you will design and optimize multi-threaded, asynchronous software on Linux, analyze and improve performance across CPU, memory, storage, networking, and I/O, and debug complex issues that span software and hardware boundaries. You will also read, maintain, and extend existing Python tooling used for automation, testing, and data analysis, and take ownership of software components throughout the full product development lifecycle.

This position is well suited for a self-driven engineer who takes ownership of their work, writes clean and maintainable modern C++ (C++17/20), and enjoys understanding how software interacts with operating systems and hardware to achieve exceptional performance. You will contribute at a high level in a collaborative, fast-moving engineering environment, participating in architecture, technical design, and code reviews as you help ship robust software for commercial products.

What You'll Do

• Design, develop, and optimize high-performance software using modern C++ (C++17/20)

• Develop scalable, reliable, and maintainable software for Linux-based systems

• Design multi-threaded and asynchronous software architectures

• Analyze, profile, and optimize software performance across CPU, memory, storage, networking, and I/O

• Read, understand, maintain, and enhance existing Python code used for automation, testing, and data analysis

• Collaborate closely with firmware, hardware, and application engineering teams

• Participate in software architecture, technical design, and code reviews

• Debug complex system-level issues across software and hardware boundaries

• Take ownership of software components throughout the product development lifecycle

What We're Looking For

The ideal candidate is passionate about building high-quality commercial software and solving challenging systems problems.

You take ownership of your work, write clean and maintainable code, and enjoy understanding how software interacts with operating systems and hardware to achieve exceptional performance.

Experience building and shipping software for commercial products is highly valued.

You thrive in a collaborative environment and enjoy working across software, firmware, and hardware disciplines to build products used in real customer environments.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field

• 5+ years of professional software development experience (Senior) or 8+ years (Staff)

• Strong proficiency in modern C++ (C++17/20)

• Working knowledge of Python with the ability to read, understand, maintain, and modify existing Python code

• Strong experience developing software on Linux

• Strong understanding of: Operating systems, Memory management, Multi-threading and concurrency, Software architecture, Performance optimization

• Excellent debugging and problem-solving skills

• Experience using Git and modern software development workflows

Nice to have:

• Experience designing and developing large-scale commercial software systems

• Experience developing and shipping software for commercial products

• Experience with scientific instrumentation or data acquisition systems

• Experience collaborating with firmware and hardware engineering teams

• Familiarity with low-latency, real-time, or data acquisition software systems

• Experience developing desktop applications using Qt Widgets and Qt Charts

• Familiarity with scientific computing, signal processing, physics, or machine learning

• Experience with Linux systems programming

• Experience with performance profiling tools such as perf or Valgrind

• Experience with CMake and GDB

• Familiarity with Embedded Linux

• Experience with hardware communication interfaces such as Ethernet, USB, PCIe, or Serial

• Familiarity with CI/CD and automated testing

Benefits

• Equity and Salary compensation depends on experience 
• Health, Dental, Vision plans provided
• 401k matching provided
• Time off: 20 days of PTO per year, plus approximately 15 paid US holidays per year