Manager, Software Engineering (Semiconductor - Metrology)

Position Summary

The Software Engineering Manager leads software development at Onto Tucson, owning the team and the codebase for 4D branded products. 4D's product portfolio is primarily optical metrology — specifically laser interferometry — and industrial metrology — primarily fringe projection — along with the software tools used in production of these devices. This is a player-coach role: the Software Engineering Manager runs the team, sets technical direction, and stays close enough to the code to make architecture and code-review calls — while owning hiring, performance management, and cross-functional partnerships with Engineering, Product Management, Manufacturing, Service, and Quality.

Key Responsibilities

• Team Leadership

• Lead, hire, and develop a team of software engineers and QA engineers across desktop application development, firmware / embedded engineering, and internal tooling, partnering closely with the Software Architect on technical direction.
• Conduct performance reviews, succession planning, hiring, and career development; build progression paths from junior to mid / senior level.
• Establish team rituals: standups, code-review cadence, sprint planning, retrospectives.
• Restore disciplined Scrum practice across the team: sprint planning, daily standups, sprint review, retrospectives, and a well-groomed product backlog.
• Build a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and continuous improvement.

• Technical Leadership

• Set technical direction for the software portfolio: customer-facing analysis tools, instrument firmware, and internal manufacturing / test software.
• Own software development practices: code review, testing standards, branching and release strategy, CI / CD, version-control discipline.
• Maintain a roadmap for technical debt, platform health, and security / compliance updates.

• Customer-Facing Software (Analysis & Visualization)

• Drive development of customer-facing software.
• Partner with Product Management on roadmap, feature prioritization, and customer release commitments.
• Cook up and coordinate with the Senior Service Manager on field issues that originate in software, including hot-fix release planning.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Engineering on product development, New Product Introduction (NPI), and Engineering Changes (ECs / ECOs) that have software impact.
• Partner with the Senior Service Manager on field-software issues, FSE diagnostic tools, and customer escalations with a software root cause.
• Partner with Quality on QMS-related software documentation, validation, software-related CAPAs, and audit support.

• Software Quality & Release Management

• Own the software quality program: defect tracking, regression testing, release validation, and customer-facing release notes.
• Plan, track, and deliver software releases on commitment using Jira; track program status against committed milestones.
• Track and report software KPIs to senior leadership; provide weekly program status.
• Ensure software development practices align with applicable QMS requirements.

• Continuous Improvement

• Drive engineering productivity improvements: developer tooling, test automation, deployment automation.
• Build engineering capability through training, mentorship, conference participation, and technical learning.

Qualifications

• Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, or related technical field, OR equivalent technical experience and demonstrated track record of software engineering leadership.

• Experience

• 8–12 years of software engineering experience with 3+ years managing engineers.
• Demonstrated experience leading multi-domain software teams (desktop applications, embedded / firmware, internal tooling) — or at least one of these domains plus willingness to grow into the others.
• Experience in scientific instrumentation, optical metrology, semiconductor capital equipment, medical devices, or comparable precision-instrument software.
• Hands-on experience with the software development lifecycle in a regulated or QMS environment.

• Skills & Competencies

• Strong technical depth in one or more of: C# / .NET (Windows desktop), C / C++ (firmware / embedded), Python (analysis and internal tooling).
• Strong understanding of software architecture, performance optimization, and cross-platform development.
• Familiarity with soft real-time systems, instrument control, and hardware-software integration.
• Working knowledge of source control (git), CI / CD, and modern development workflows.
• Strong Scrum practitioner; experience running sprint cadences, backlog grooming, and retrospectives in Jira and GitHub workflows.
• Strong communication skills — able to explain software trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders (Manufacturing, Service, Sales, customers).
• Coaching and team-building; experience growing engineers from junior to mid / senior level.
• Comfort operating in an ISO 9001 or comparable QMS environment with software validation requirements.
• Adherence to company ethics, customer-confidentiality, and gifts / conflict-of-interest policies in all customer and supplier interactions.

• Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience with optical metrology, interferometry, or scientific imaging applications.
• Experience with FPGA development or hardware-software co-design.
• Experience with GPU acceleration (CUDA, OpenCL, or compute shaders) for performance-critical metrology computation.
• Experience with robotic automation integration in industrial product lines (relevant to 4D’s Inspec product line).
• Demonstrated track record of driving adoption of AI-assisted development tools (GitHub Copilot, Claude or other LLM-based development workflows) in a software engineering team.

Compensation & Growth

Base Salary Range: $115,200.00 - $172,800.00, offered in good faith and based on experience, location, and qualifications. Additional Rewards: Annual bonus opportunities and potential long-term incentives tied to both company and individual success.