Senior/Staff Software Engineer - C++

VoltForce is working with an early-stage materials-inspection company seeking a Senior or Staff Software Engineer. The company helps manufacturers improve micro- and nano-scale materials used in energy storage, semiconductors, aerospace, and power systems by providing real-time, non-destructive material inspection during production. Their platform uses physics-informed machine learning to capture signals conventional techniques miss, offering actionable intelligence to reduce variability, increase yield, and enhance performance. The platform integrates into production lines and is already deployed with leading global manufacturers.

About the Role

You will design and build high-performance, systems-level software at the core of the company’s platform. This role involves owning software components end-to-end—from architecture and design to implementation, optimization, and release—while working closely with the operating system and hardware. You’ll collaborate across software, firmware, and hardware teams to develop and optimize modern C++ for Linux-based systems, design multi-threaded and asynchronous architectures, and debug complex issues spanning software and hardware boundaries. Ideal candidates take ownership, write clean and maintainable code, and enjoy understanding how software interacts with systems and hardware to achieve exceptional performance in real-world environments.

Responsibilities

• 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.

Requirements

• 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 for a Senior hire, or 8+ years for a Staff hire.
• 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, and performance optimization.
• Excellent debugging and problem-solving skills.
• Experience using Git and modern software development workflows.

Preferred Qualifications

• 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.

Nice to Have

• 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.

Location: San Francisco Bay Area (on-site). Job Type: Full-time.