{"id":682255,"url":"https://alion.io/job/prolific-machines-senior-software-platform-engineer","title":"Senior Software Platform Engineer","company":{"id":685503,"name":"Prolific Machines","domain":"prolific-machines.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/prolific-machines","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Lever","truth_index":null},"role":"DevOps","role_family":"DevOps","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Emeryville, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":160000,"max":210000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":210000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":7,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Linux","optional":false},{"name":"MySQL","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"TCP/IP","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false},{"name":"Airtable","optional":true},{"name":"C","optional":true},{"name":"C++","optional":true},{"name":"Embedded C","optional":true},{"name":"MQTT","optional":true},{"name":"OPC UA","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-06-03T18:58:03Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-06-03","last_verified_at":"2026-10-01T03:46:21Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":119,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":119},"description":"This is a high-ownership role with significant opportunity to shape the long-term direction of software systems at Prolific. As a foundational Software Engineer within the organization, you will have substantial influence over architecture, tooling, and long-term technical direction.\nWe’re looking for a Software Engineer to help define and build the next-generation software and controls platform underlying Prolific’s illumination systems. This role will serve as a foundational software hire within a multidisciplinary illuminator technology team, helping define software architecture across device control, cloud-connected infrastructure, internal tooling, and future customer-facing systems.\nThis individual will work closely with Firmware, Hardware, Data, and Bioprocess Engineering teams to develop scalable, production-ready control systems for next-generation illumination products. Over time, this role is expected to help define software architecture, interfaces, and development strategy as Prolific expands both internal software capabilities and external development partnerships.\nThis is not a traditional consumer web or SaaS role. Success in this position requires strong systems thinking and comfort operating across the hardware/software boundary. The ideal candidate enjoys working in-person, operating close to real-world systems and hardware, and is comfortable working across abstraction layers rather than specializing narrowly in frontend or backend development.\nThis role will be primarily based on-site in Emeryville, CA with some hybrid flexibility depending on current project needs.\nResponsibilities\nArchitect and develop the software platform connecting Prolific illumination hardware, firmware, cloud infrastructure, internal tooling, and future operational and customer-deployed systems\n\nDefine software interfaces, communication layers, and subsystem boundaries across distributed control systems\n\nCollaborate closely with firmware and hardware engineers to design robust hardware/software interactions\n\nEstablish scalable software infrastructure and engineering practices suitable for long-term productization\n\nHelp define technical scopes, interfaces, and development strategy for external software development partners and contractors where appropriate\n\nContribute hands-on across the stack while helping shape longer-term software technical direction\n\nRequirements\nMS with 5+ years or BS with 7+ years of professional software development experience. Degree in Software Engineering , Computer Science, or a related field preferred.\n\nStrong systems-level thinking and ability to reason across software, firmware, hardware, and operational workflows\n\nAbility to balance rapid prototyping with long-term architectural scalability\n\nExperience decomposing complex systems into modular, maintainable subsystems\n\nFluency in Python and proficiency in at least one other general-purpose language (e.g. TypeScript, Go, Rust)\n\nExperience defining requirements, designing, implementing, and deploying software\n\nExperience designing software for reliability, maintainability, and operational robustness in mission-critical systems\n\nExperience deploying and maintaining cloud-connected applications or services\n\nExperience working with SQL databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.)\n\nExperience working closely with end users to iteratively improve software usability and workflows\n\nExperience setting up and owning their own development environment (incl. unit/integration/end-to-end testing, continuous integration, etc.)\n\nExperience interfacing software with hardware systems (serial, TCP/IP, etc.) and ability to debug issues across the software/hardware boundary\n\nComfort working in Linux environments\n\nNice to Haves\nExperience leading technical projects involving external vendors, contractors, or distributed development teams\n\nExposure to the Industrial IoT / Industry 4.0 stack, e.g. protocols (MQTT Sparkplug B, OPC UA), system layers (HMI/SCADA, MES), and architectural patterns like Unified Namespace (UNS).\n\nExperience with electronic records, audit trails, and data integrity principles for industrial or regulated settings\n\nExperience developing software in the biotech or pharmaceutical industries where 21 CFR Part 11, GAMP 5, or ALCOA+ or similar regulations are relevant\n\nExperience modernizing or replacing ad-hoc operational tooling (e.g. Airtable-based workflows)\n\nExperience developing custom dashboards and data visualizers\n\nExpertise in defining and building out devops, development workflows, and selecting toolchains\n\nEmbedded C/C++ development experience or knowledge about the limitations of firmware and embedded systems\n\nExperience with Ignition, AirTable or the Particle Cloud systems.\n\nAbout You\nEnjoys taking projects all the way from concept to deployment\n\nComfortable in a dynamic startup environment with evolving requirements\n\nThrives in multidisciplinary environments alongside scientists, engineers, and operators\n\nComfortable making pragmatic technical decisions in an ambiguous, rapidly evolving environment\n\nExcited to enable a technology and end product that will have a positive impact on people’s lives","description_format":"text","description_chars":5166,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":7,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Bioprocessing"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-10T23:41:54Z"}],"liveness":{"score":12,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.413,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":119,"expected_fill_days":42,"reasons":["conf:1","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-01T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":210000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/prolific-machines-senior-software-platform-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/prolific-machines-senior-software-platform-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-01T13:10:41Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":4784,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":216,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-02T00:00:00Z"}}}