Onto Innovation is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to develop and improve software for its semiconductor inspection platforms. The role applies systems thinking, machine vision, image processing, and machine learning to customer problems, while contributing to software design, development, testing, and cross-functional product development.
Build and continuously refine an accurate mental model of the full Onto inspection platform—optics, motion, electronics, image acquisition, and software stack
Translate customer problems and application requirements into well-scoped engineering tasks by reasoning across subsystem boundaries
Agility to zoom from system-level architecture down into any specific areas: databases, algorithm performance, hardware, data flow, GPUs, GUIs, etc
Participate in New Product Development (NPD) alongside hardware engineers, application engineers, Technical Project Managers, and Program/Product Managers
Apply machine learning, image processing, computer vision, mathematics, and optics to develop algorithms integrated into Onto inspection platforms
Develop or contribute to optical imaging modeling/calibration and/or image segmentation, classification, and detection algorithms
Write, test, and debug software to ensure high-quality, reliable operation; optimize for performance and scalability
Perform or lead (based on experience) requirement analysis, detailed software design, production code development, and associated test plans
Participate in design/code reviews collaborating with systems engineers, software developers, and other technical staff
Leverage AI coding agents to accelerate implementation, while maintaining ownership of architecture decisions, design integrity, and code quality
Stay current with academic research and industrial practices in machine vision inspection, image processing, machine learning, and AI-assisted engineering
Document software designs, system-level rationale, development processes, and troubleshooting steps
Support teammates and, at senior levels, provide technical mentorship—especially in systems thinking
Contribute to improving the team's development workflows and tooling, including AI-assisted practices
Must be able to travel internationally to customer sites at least 20% of the time, with additional travel as business needs require
Qualification
Required
PhD, MS, or Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Physics, or related field
Doctorate degree with 0+ years related experience; or Master's degree with 0+ years related experience; or Bachelor's degree with 0+ years related experience
Demonstrated ability to reason about systems at multiple levels of abstraction—from high-level architecture down to implementation details
Strong problem-solving, analytical, and communication skills; able to articulate complex system behavior clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Competency (or demonstrable coursework) in at least one numerically focused environment such as Python or MATLAB, including linear algebra, image processing, and/or machine learning libraries
Competency (or demonstrable coursework) in at least one compiled or production language used in large-scale software systems, such as C++, C#, or Java
Preferred
Experience in semiconductor inspection, machine vision, robotics, or similar highly technical domains where hardware/software co-design is essential
Track record of diagnosing cross-subsystem issues that span optics, electronics, firmware, and application software
Experience effectively using AI coding agents (e.g., Copilot, Cursor, Aider, or similar) to accelerate development
Experience with software development methodologies such as Agile, Scrum, or Kanban
Experience with version control and CI/CD practices
