Senior Staff Real-Time C/C++ System Software Engineer

About SirenOpt

SirenOpt® provides metrology and manufacturing intelligence solutions that accelerate sustainable and smart manufacturing of advanced coatings, thin films and nano-scale materials, with demonstrated use cases across battery, semiconductor, aerospace, electronics and many other industries. Micro- or nano-scale materials enable many high-growth industries, including lithium, sodium and solid-state batteries, solar cells, carbon sequestration and conversion technologies, optical devices, quantum devices, displays, adhesives, medical implants, semiconductors, packaging materials, and many others.

SirenOpt is pioneering a paradigm shift in advanced materials characterization by leveraging cold atmospheric plasma, machine learning and predictive analytics to non-destructively create uniquely distinctive, multifaceted material fingerprints in real-time. SirenOpt transforms current measurement blind spots into rich multi-layered material insights, which enable intelligent performance-centric decision-making. SirenOpt thus accelerates R&D and process optimization, enhances product performance, and delivers higher production quality to maximize value in both standalone (benchtop) and integrated (in-line) applications.

Job Description

We’re seeking a Senior Staff Real‑Time C/C++ System Software Engineer to build high‑throughput, low‑latency system software that interfaces with embedded devices and industrial equipment on high‑volume thin‑film and other manufacturing lines. You will focus on host‑side software on an RT Linux—services, libraries, data paths, and I/O—working closely with firmware and hardware teams to define robust interfaces. You will not be required to design or develop embedded firmware or hardware.

If you excel at real‑time systems, deterministic performance, and rigorous engineering in C/C++, this is an opportunity to shape core architecture and ship software that powers the green‑energy transition.

In this role you will:

• Design and implement real‑time C/C++ services and libraries on Linux (including RT configurations) to ingest, control, process and synchronize data from embedded devices, sensors, and instruments.
• Interface with embedded systems via well‑defined protocols and APIs (e.g., SPI/I²C/UART bridges, CAN, Modbus/TCP, EtherCAT/Profinet gateways, Ethernet/TCP/UDP, gRPC), collaborating with FW/HW teams on interface specs, timing, and error handling.
• Optimize performance for determinism, throughput, and latency (threading, scheduling, lock‑free queues, ring buffers, zero‑copy, DMA/driver boundaries, NUMA/affinity).
• Harden reliability with robust state machines, watchdogs, retries/backoff, and graceful degradation for 24/7 factory environments.
• Own system bring‑up on the host side: board/OS configuration, device/driver integration, I/O path validation, and deployment automation.
• Instrument and debug with logs/metrics/traces; use profiling and sanitizers to drive root‑cause analysis and continuous performance tuning.
• Collaborate across disciplines (HW/FW/ML/Product/QA) to define requirements, testability, and measurable quality; contribute to technical design reviews and customer‑facing demos.
• Author and maintain requirements, interface specs, test plans, and test reports.

What you'll learn:

• How plasma‑based metrology and ML‑driven analytics translate into real‑time, in‑line decisions on production lines and standalone R&D systems.
• Best practices for scaling host‑side software from benchtop prototypes to factory‑integrated deployments with deterministic performance and high availability.
• End‑to‑end product delivery in a multidisciplinary environment.

You have (Minimum Qualifications):

• 10+ years professional experience and a STEM degree or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong expertise in modern C/C++ (C++14/17 or later) for system/real‑time development on Linux.
• Demonstrated ability to leverage architecture‑specific features across CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs (e.g., x86, ARM, CUDA/ROCm, and NPU toolchains) – including SIMD/vectorization, cache/NUMA and thread‑affinity tuning, and zero‑copy/DMA to meet deterministic latency/throughput targets.
• Proven track record building high‑throughput, low‑latency data paths and control loops interfacing with embedded or industrial systems.
• Demonstrated strength in concurrency, memory management, and real‑time scheduling (e.g., SCHED_FIFO, priority inversion mitigation).
• Hands‑on proficiency with debugging and profiling tools (gdb/lldb, perf, valgrind, sanitizers, flame graphs) and Linux internals sufficient to reason about syscalls, epoll/io_uring, and networking.
• Experience integrating complex systems across hardware, firmware, and software with rigorous testing in lab/production environments.

Nice to have (Preferred Qualifications):

• Experience with RT‑Linux/PREEMPT_RT or other real‑time Linux configurations.
• Familiarity with industrial fieldbuses and device communication (e.g., CAN, Modbus, EtherCAT, Profinet) and/or kernel‑bypass I/O.
• Exposure to rate‑monotonic and deadline‑driven scheduling theory (and practical limits).
• Experience creating user‑space or kernel‑adjacent interfaces (e.g., netlink, ioctl, character devices) or collaborating with driver teams; host‑side device driver experience is a plus but firmware development is not required.
• Knowledge of build and CI/CD for C/C++ (CMake/Bazel, GCC/Clang, static analysis, code quality standards such as MISRA).
• Comfort with lab instrumentation (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, DMMs) for system‑level bring‑up and validation.

Compensation:

• Base pay range: $125,000 – $180,000 USD (actual compensation depends on experience, skills, and location)

SirenOpt is an equal‑opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to an inclusive environment. If you’re excited by the role but don’t meet every single qualification, we encourage you to apply.

Benefits

• Health, Dental, Vision plans provided
• 401k matching provided
• Time off: 20 days of PTO per year, plus approximately 15 paid US holidays per year