Senior Systems Software Engineer

Senior Systems Software Engineer – Industrial CT Automation

Senior Systems Software Engineer – Industrial CT Automation at ZEISS Industrial Quality Services (IQS) responsible for designing and implementing systems software that connects third‑party automation systems to the ZEISS Inspect evaluation platform. Focus: robust, scalable back‑end services (primarily gRPC), reliability, and test/Dev Ops pipelines for production‑grade deployments in semiconductor advanced packaging.

ZEISS has been in business for over 177 years. We are pioneers of science, handling ever‑changing environments with cutting‑edge technology and continuous advancements. Our diverse portfolios span Industrial Quality & Research, Medical Technology, Consumer Markets, and Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology. With 42,000 employees worldwide and 4,000 in the US and Canada, we aim to make a difference by giving you a chance to join the team.

Key individual contributor responsible for back‑end service design, implementation, and collaboration across automation, controls, metrology, and machine learning teams to translate requirements into production‑ready solutions.

• Design and implement back‑end services and interfaces (primarily gRPC) that integrate third‑party automation systems with ZEISS Inspect for CT‑based advanced packaging inspection.
• Own service‑level concerns including performance, reliability, observability, fault tolerance, and secure deployment of production services.
• Develop and maintain automated test pipelines (unit, integration, hardware‑/system‑in‑the‑loop) and contribute to CI/CD workflows.
• Collaborate closely with automation, controls, metrology, and machine learning teams across IQS and SMT to refine requirements and deliver production‑ready integrations.
• Implement and tune data exchange/serialization mechanisms (e.g., Protocol Buffers) and support secure, role‑appropriate service communication.
• Instrument services for metrics, logging, and tracing to support robust monitoring and rapid issue diagnosis.
• Participate in code reviews, design discussions, and continuous improvement of engineering practices, coding standards, and architecture patterns.
• Produce clear technical documentation and operational runbooks for deployment, support, and handover to operations and field organizations.
• Support investigation and resolution of escalated production issues related to CT automation software components.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or a related field;
  Master’s degree preferred.
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience in back‑end or systems software roles.
• Strong coding proficiency in C++ and C# with working proficiency in Python.
• Demonstrated experience building server architectures and networked services (ideally gRPC or similar RPC frameworks).
• Hands‑on experience with Dev Ops and testing pipelines (e.g., Git‑based CI, automated builds/tests, artifact management, deployments).
• Solid software engineering fundamentals: version control, code reviews, debugging/profiling, and writing maintainable, testable code.

• Experience with industrial/automation systems: robots, motion controllers, PLCs, machine controllers, or factory MES.
• Experience with Windows and Linux service development, containerization (Docker), and orchestration environments.
• Knowledge of observability practices (metrics/logging/tracing) and performance tuning for high‑throughput systems.
• Familiarity with data exchange/serialization (Protocol Buffers) and secure service communication / RBAC concepts.
• Experience with imaging/vision, CT, metrology, or semiconductor manufacturing environments.

• Central/Midwest: $110,000 – $138,000 per year
• San Francisco Bay Area: $149,000 – $186,000 per year

The pay offered for this role may be influenced by factors such as job location, scope of role, qualifications, education, experience, and complexity/specialization/scarcity of talent. This position is also eligible for a performance bonus or sales commissions. ZEISS offers robust benefits, including medical plans, retirement savings plan and paid time off.

Maria Khalil

Zeiss provides Equal Employment Opportunity without unlawful regard to an Applicants race, color, religion, creed, sex, gender, marital status, age, national origin or ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, military or veteran status, citizen status, sexual orientation, pregnancy (includes childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical condition), genetic predisposition, carrier status, gender expression or identity, including transgender identity, or any other class or characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law of the employee (or the people with whom the employee associates, including relatives and friends).