Director of Software Engineering

We are seeking a software engineering leader to play a critical role in the development of our flagship multi‑omic RAPTOR™ platform . As Director of Software Engineering , you will own the technical direction, delivery outcomes, and people leadership for a team of software engineers responsible for developing the platform’s instrument control software. This is a high‑impact leadership role requiring deep technical judgment in biotech instrumentation and experience delivering regulated software products . You will set and guide the team’s technical vision, drive execution and prioritization, and communicate effectively across engineering, science, hardware, and product stakeholders. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys collaborating to build complex, tightly integrated systems that solve novel problems, and who has experience working in the life sciences, NGS, diagnostics, or adjacent regulated domains alongside cross‑disciplinary experts. In this role you will: Provide direct, hands-on technical and people leadership for the Instrument Control software, firmware and software test teams owning the end-to-end instrument software Serve as the technical authority for your domain, setting architectural direction and making high‑impact tradeoff decisions across scalability, security, performance, and maintainability. Manage, mentor, and grow software engineers across a wide range of experience levels, areas of expertise, and scopes of responsibility Be responsible for the team prioritization and successful delivery of all software components and test required to deploy the Pleno Raptor instrument and associated applications Work cross-functionally with representatives of many other disciplines – such as Bioinformatics and algorithms, Biology, and Hardware Engineering – to set your teams’ direction, strategy, and priorities Direct software team prioritization as well as issue investigation and root cause analysis to keep the team on track with program deliverables. Provide hands-on technical contribution and guidance to Instrument Control software and software architectures across the platform Build and deliver clear software product documentation and traceability to meet corporate quality standards (ISO, etc). Participate as a member of our engineering leadership team and be expected to contribute to corporate strategy & initiatives as well as be a positive cultural role model for the engineering organization To be successful in this role you have: A proven track record of leading software teams to success on very complex projects throughout all stages of the software development life cycle, culminating in multiple products that have been successfully shipped to customers Created and nurtured high performing software teams through a combination of coaching, hiring, performance reviews, technical mentorship, and other leadership techniques Set software requirements, goals and milestones, ensure constant alignment with technical team and other senior leaders Fluency in a wide variety of programming concepts, disciplines, tools, environments (such as FreeRTOS, Linux, and cloud), languages (most notably C/C++ and Python), as well as knowledge of docker and other container technologies Worked on multiple real-time or instrument control systems (RTOS, I2C, SPI, UART, TCP/IP) that have been successfully deployed to external customers Deployed software test process and infrastructure as well as guided software test teams to efficiently roll out robust code changes both internally and to our customers Created and maintained a growing number of software tools for R&D while also building team efficiencies through Ai integration tools. Experience with developing software quality process and tools to enable robust software development as well as verification and validation of software Strong organization, communication, problem solving, and project management skills, along with a willingness to jump in to help wherever it is needed Skills as leader who is trusted by everyone within the organization; you are able to lead directly as well as indirectly through collaboration & influence Education & Experience: You have 15+ years of relevant experience in a high performing software engineering organization, including 5+ years of experience in a leadership role You have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a similar related field Note: This position will require regular onsite participation at our office/lab in San Diego, CA - A