Senior Software Engineer - Data Acquisition and Instrument Integration

DECTRIS is a successful and expanding high-tech company that develops and produces X-ray and electron detectors. Our detectors are used worldwide in large-scale research facilities and in industry. Their unique properties enable scientific breakthroughs in life sciences and material sciences. Our more than 170 employees are located in Switzerland, the United States and Japan. At DECTRIS, we combine innovation and development with agile industry practices. As a spin-off of the Paul Scherrer Institute and by focusing on the needs of our customers, we are able to combine scientific excellence with qualified service and industrial know-how.

Our scientists as well as our technical and commercial experts ensure that our customers benefit from the latest technologies.

Senior Software Engineer - Data Acquisition and Instrument Integration

Your Tasks

• Design and build a new generation of C++23 backend services that orchestrate the full detector acquisition lifecycle (configuration, arming, triggering, streaming, teardown). You'll analyse an existing product to define the architecture, deciding what to carry forward, what to redesign, and where the service boundaries lie, and owning the result end-to-end. The reliability of what you build directly affects experiment outcomes; scientists cannot repeat a missed acquisition
• Drive DECTRIS detector hardware over the SIMPLON HTTP/REST API and implement gRPC/Protobuf service interfaces that synchronise microscope scan hardware, translating each scan position into a precisely timed data acquisition
• Build the high-throughput frame path from detector to downstream consumers (zero-copy buffers, 10-100 GbE) and design IPC and streaming contracts with an internally developed GPU reconstruction server for real-time ptychography and 4D-STEM reconstruction
• Maintain IPC contracts between the C++ services and our first-party Tauri desktop application so scientists and microscopists can monitor live diffraction patterns and assess data quality in real time; write libraries with stable C ABIs that embed live camera data into third-party vendor software
• Expose acquisition APIs to scientists via Python bindings (pybind11/nanobind), build detector simulators and CI automation, and travel occasionally to customer sites to work directly alongside researchers during live experiments. Keep the build, test, and CI standards healthy

Your Skills

• 5+ years of professional software engineering with a strong C++ track record (C++17 or later; C++20/23 experience is a significant advantage); we are actively introducing Rust into the stack and welcome candidates who have worked with both
• Proven experience building backend services or daemons, with a deep understanding of concurrency, the C++ memory model, and lock-free design under load
• Proven track record designing and implementing gRPC/Protobuf services (server and client sides) and consuming RESTful HTTP APIs
• Systems programming experience on Windows and on Linux
• Python proficiency in scripting, data handling, and wrapping C++ libraries for scientific users
• A track record of profiling and optimising throughput-critical code

• Experience with Rust, particularly FFI across C and C++ boundaries, and familiarity with our frontend stack: Tauri, TypeScript
• Background in electron microscopy, 4D-STEM, crystallography, or another scientific imaging domain, including familiarity with scientific data formats (HDF5/NeXus, TIFF stacks, or detector-specific stream formats)
• Experience integrating with vendor microscope or analytical instrument software (JEOL, Thermo Fisher, Hitachi, etc.)
• A background in scientific imaging is welcome but not required; strong systems engineers from other domains are encouraged to apply

We Offer

• A successful and growing high tech company in an international, scientific environment
• To join the global leader in HPC X-ray detectors for science and industry. Our Developers design cutting-edge detectors to support the state of the art science and technology
• An international work environment formed by more than 170 experienced engineers, scientists and other professionals. The company languages are German and English
• Excellent, flexible working arrangements to enable professional development and personal life balance
• An attractive working environment: modern infrastructure with wheelchair-accessible rooms, small fitness room, underground car park, subsidised meals, free snacks and drinks, various company events, internal and external training, home office options, after-work beers and other joint leisure activities

https://www.dectris.com/career

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Your Future Team

DECTRIS D2K Team

The DECTRIS D2K Team accelerate scientific discoveries by bringing digital solutions to science labs. We develop applications and platforms to empower scientists around the world to efficiently get the most out of their experiments and data in a collaborative manner.

DECTRIS Ltd. · Taefernweg 1 · 5405 Baden-Daettwil

www.dectris.com · Phone: +41 56 500 21 00 · [email protected]