Senior Software Engineer

Onto Innovation•Wilmington, MA

About The Position

Onto Innovation is seeking a Software Engineer to join its Inspection Business Unit (IBU). The role focuses on developing and supporting software for complex semiconductor inspection platforms that combine optics, motion, electronics, image acquisition, and software. The engineer must maintain a system-level understanding of the platform while investigating detailed technical issues and translating customer problems and application requirements into suitable engineering solutions. Responsibilities and ownership are scoped to experience level, with senior engineers driving broader technical direction and leadership. The position applies machine learning, image processing, computer vision, mathematics, and optics to algorithms integrated into Onto inspection platforms. Work may include optical imaging modeling and calibration, as well as image segmentation, classification, and detection. Engineers contribute to software design, production development, testing, performance and scalability, requirements analysis, and reviews, while using AI coding agents to accelerate implementation without relinquishing ownership of architecture and code quality. The role also involves collaboration on new product development with hardware, applications, project, and product teams; documentation of designs and troubleshooting; ongoing learning in machine vision and AI-assisted engineering; and, at senior levels, technical mentorship and improvement of team workflows.

Requirements

PhD, MS, or Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Physics, or a related field.
Ability to reason about systems at multiple levels of abstraction, from high-level architecture to implementation details.
Strong problem-solving, analytical, and communication skills, including the ability to explain complex system behavior to 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.
Related experience may be 0 or more years; the posting gives examples of doctorate, master's, and bachelor's degree holders with 0+ years of related experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience in semiconductor inspection, machine vision, robotics, or similar technical domains where hardware/software co-design is essential.
Track record of diagnosing cross-subsystem issues spanning optics, electronics, firmware, and application software.
Experience using AI coding agents such as Copilot, Cursor, Aider, or similar tools.
Experience with software development methodologies such as Agile, Scrum, or Kanban.
Experience with version control and CI/CD practices.
Experience debugging complex multi-threaded software environments.
Familiarity with embedded systems, hardware communication protocols, and/or real-time constraints.

Responsibilities

Build and continuously refine an accurate mental model of the inspection platform, including optics, motion, electronics, image acquisition, and the software stack.
Translate customer problems and application requirements into well-scoped engineering tasks by reasoning across subsystem boundaries.
Move between system-level architecture and detailed technical areas such as databases, algorithm performance, hardware, data flow, GPUs, and GUIs.
Participate in new product development with 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 inspection platforms.
Develop or contribute to optical imaging modeling and calibration, and/or image segmentation, classification, and detection algorithms.
Write, test, and debug software for reliable operation, optimizing for performance and scalability.
Perform or lead requirements analysis, detailed software design, production code development, and associated test plans, according to experience level.
Participate in design and code reviews with systems engineers, software developers, and other technical staff.
Use AI coding agents to accelerate implementation while maintaining ownership of architecture decisions, design integrity, and code quality.
Stay current with research and industry 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 improvements in development workflows and tooling, including AI-assisted practices.