{"id":2206282,"url":"https://alion.io/job/nearfield-instruments-senior-software-systems-engineer-usa","title":"Senior Software Systems Engineer - USA","company":{"id":174218,"name":"Nearfield Instruments","domain":"nearfieldinstruments.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/nearfield-instruments","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Recruitee","truth_index":{"grade":"C","score":56,"open_postings":60,"ghost_share":0.733,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-19T05:45:15Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["Portland, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":115000,"max_usd":210000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":3287},"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Linux","optional":false},{"name":"Windows","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-07-10T12:45:37Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-07-10","last_verified_at":"2026-10-19T12:38:37Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":101,"trust":{"level":"ghost","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale","company_stale"],"days_open":100},"description":"About Nearfield Instruments\nNearfield Instruments is a scale-up bringing together some of the world’s most creative minds in science and technology. We develop revolutionary high-throughput Atomic Force Microscopy systems that provide atom-scale 3D metrology at production-level throughput.\nOur technology helps leading semiconductor manufacturers solve complex process-control challenges. We design, develop, integrate, and support advanced metrology systems for next-generation semiconductor manufacturing.\nAs we continue to expand in the United States, we are looking for an experienced Senior Software Systems Engineer who can connect customer needs and field experience with our software development organization.\nWhat will you be doing?\nAs Senior Software Systems Engineer, you will act as the technical bridge between our customers, the U.S. field organization, and our Research & Technology Development software teams.\nThis is not primarily a software development or coding position. Your main responsibility is to understand how our software and equipment perform in a semiconductor manufacturing environment. You will gather and analyze customer requirements, investigate system issues, and translate operational needs into clear, actionable requirements for our RTD teams.\nYou will work directly with customers and internal engineering teams to improve system functionality, stability, usability, and productivity. This requires a strong system-level mindset and the ability to understand how software interacts with hardware, automation, motion control, and other parts of a complex semiconductor metrology system.\nYour responsibilities\nAct as the primary software systems expert supporting Nearfield equipment at customer sites.\n\nEngage with customers and field teams to gather, analyze, and clarify operational and software requirements.\n\nTranslate customer needs and field observations into clear functional requirements, improvement requests, and problem statements for RTD software teams.\n\nServe as the voice of the customer when discussing software priorities and product improvements.\n\nTroubleshoot software, system-integration, and platform issues across complex semiconductor metrology equipment.\n\nDetermine whether system issues originate from software, hardware interfaces, automation, configuration, networking, or other system interactions.\n\nWork closely with RTD software teams to investigate defects, define required improvements, and validate corrective actions.\n\nInstall, configure, validate, and support software releases, upgrades, patches, service packs, and hot fixes.\n\nValidate new software functionality in a customer environment before broader deployment.\n\nSupport root-cause investigations involving software, hardware, motion control, automation, and overall system performance.\n\nPartner with Applications, Service Engineering, Systems Engineering, Program Management, and Product Development to improve product performance.\n\nDevelop troubleshooting guides, best-known methods, and field documentation.\n\nSupport software-related customer escalations requiring detailed technical analysis and cross-functional coordination.\n\nAssist with customer demonstrations, product evaluations, and new product introductions.\n\nTravel to customer locations in the United States and periodically to Nearfield’s headquarters in the Netherlands.\n\nRequirements\nWhat do we require from you?\nOur ideal candidate combines semiconductor manufacturing experience with strong systems understanding, requirements-gathering capabilities, and customer-facing communication skills.\nYou understand how software operates within advanced capital equipment, but your strength is not limited to writing code. You can work with customers to identify their real operational needs, ask the right technical questions, and translate complex input into structured requirements for software and engineering teams.\nDesired qualifications\nBachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering, Computer Science, Systems Engineering, Physics, or a related technical discipline.\n\nAt least eight years of experience supporting complex capital equipment, integrated hardware-software products, or similarly advanced technical systems.\n\nDirect experience with semiconductor manufacturing equipment, semiconductor metrology, wafer processing, inspection, process control, or factory automation is strongly preferred.\n\nExperience working in or directly supporting semiconductor fabs and technically demanding customer environments is highly valued.\n\nDemonstrated experience gathering, analyzing, documenting, and translating customer or product requirements into actionable software requirements.\n\nStrong system-level understanding of how software interacts with hardware, motion control, automation, networking, databases, and system communications.\n\nExperience troubleshooting distributed software applications in Windows and/or Linux environments.\n\nAbility to distinguish between software, hardware, configuration, networking, and system-integration issues during root-cause analysis.\n\nExperience working with software development teams to define requirements, investigate defects, prioritize improvements, and validate solutions.\n\nExperience supporting software releases, upgrades, patches, configuration management, and version control.\n\nStrong customer-facing communication skills and the ability to explain complex technical topics clearly.\n\nAbility to manage multiple priorities and coordinate activities across global engineering teams.\n\nAbility to work independently in a customer environment while maintaining close alignment with internal stakeholders.\n\nDefinition of success\nYou will be successful in this role when you can:\nBuild credibility with semiconductor customers and understand their manufacturing environment.\n\nIdentify the real operational need behind a customer request or system issue.\n\nTranslate customer and field requirements into clear, structured input for RTD teams.\n\nTroubleshoot complex interactions between software, hardware, automation, and system performance.\n\nDrive issues and improvement requests from initial investigation through validation and implementation.\n\nImprove the reliability, usability, and productivity of Nearfield’s systems in the field.\n\nStrengthen collaboration between customers, the U.S. field organization, and our development teams.\n\nWhat can you expect from us?\nYou will join a technically demanding environment where your contribution will directly influence the performance and evolution of Nearfield’s software platform.\nYou will work closely with customers and global engineering teams on some of the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing technologies. Your understanding of customer requirements and field performance will help shape future product capabilities and improve customer productivity.\nAt Nearfield Instruments, we believe our people are our greatest competitive advantage. We rely on each other’s expertise, encourage initiative, and create an environment where collaboration leads to exceptional results.\nIf you have experience with complex semiconductor equipment and enjoy turning customer challenges into effective system and software improvements, we look forward to hearing from you.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7316,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Semiconductor Equipment"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-09T23:35:52Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":8,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.3,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":100,"expected_fill_days":35,"reasons":["conf:1","stale_co","ghost","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-19T05:45:15Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/nearfield-instruments-senior-software-systems-engineer-usa","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/nearfield-instruments-senior-software-systems-engineer-usa.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-19T13:00:39Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":9202,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-20T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":174218},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=174218"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fnearfield-instruments-senior-software-systems-engineer-usa"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fnearfield-instruments-senior-software-systems-engineer-usa"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fnearfield-instruments-senior-software-systems-engineer-usa"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/nearfield-instruments-senior-software-systems-engineer-usa\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fnearfield-instruments-senior-software-systems-engineer-usa"}]}