Senior Software Engineer

About the Role: We are seeking a highly motivated and skilled Senior Software Engineer to join our core engineering team to work on Catalyst, our software stack that runs our robotic lab systems. This is a critical, high-impact role responsible for the design, development, full integration testing, and field support of software drivers for our cutting-edge autonomous labs.

The ideal candidate possesses a strong background in programming reliable physical real-time systems in production environments. They must also excel at cross-functional collaboration, ensuring our drivers meet the exacting standards of the scientific community and providing rapid response to critical customer issues.

To learn more about automation engineering at Ginkgo, take a look at our website.

Responsibilities:

Driver Development & Implementation (70%)

• Design, implement, and maintain robust, high-performance software drivers using Python and/or C#/.NET for a diverse range of lab automation hardware (e.g., robotic arms, liquid handlers, plate readers).
• Deeply understand and implement various low-level hardware communication protocols, including RS-232, USB, and TCP/IP.
• Develop drivers with a focus on reliability.
• Contribute to the design of the device abstraction layer to create intuitive and robust interfaces for high-level application developers.
• Use and enable agentic software.

Integration & Validation (20%)

• Extensive testing with the rest of the Catalyst stack
• Collaborate closely with scientists and quality assurance teams to perform joint functional testing and validate driver performance against scientific requirements.
• Develop and maintain sophisticated automated unit and integration tests.
• Design and build hardware simulation environments to enable comprehensive driver testing and rapid iteration without relying on physical instrument access.
• Ensure the drivers include comprehensive error handling, logging, and fault-tolerance mechanisms to guarantee graceful recovery from communication timeouts and hardware failures.

Field Support & Diagnostics (10%)

• Act as a Tier 2 technical resource, providing rapid diagnosis and resolution to software and communication errors occurring at critical customer laboratory sites.
• Utilize remote diagnostic tools, system logs, and protocol analyzers to troubleshoot complex field issues quickly and effectively.
• Develop and document workarounds and permanent solutions to maintain high customer uptime.
• Proactively observing usage of our drivers and proposing improvements to the user experience/reliability

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5 years of experience in a software development role, with a focus on hardware integration, embedded systems, or driver development.
• Extensive experience with Python.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills. 
• Familiarity with laboratory automation, robotics, or scientific instrumentation is highly beneficial.

Preferred Capabilities and Experience

We do not expect that any one candidate will have all of the following capabilities - each is independently a preferred or “nice-to-have” capability.

• Experience in a fast-moving, deep-tech company
• Experience or understanding of laboratory automation and lab automation user personas
• Strong understanding of Operating System fundamentals (threading, synchronization, memory management) and real-time constraints.
• Excellent communication, patience, and the ability to translate complex technical issues for non-software stakeholders (scientists, customers).
• Proficient with Git and experience working within agile methodologies and CI/CD pipelines.
• Advanced skills in debugging low-level code, including use of protocol sniffers, logic analyzers, and remote debugging tools.
• Experience with Windows, C#, COM.
• Experience with OPC-UA, SiLA2.
• Experience or background in a life science or chemistry laboratory