{"id":4031397,"url":"https://alion.io/job/virginia-tech-instrumentation-and-tool-process-engineer","title":"Instrumentation and Tool Process Engineer","company":{"id":35633,"name":"Virginia Tech","domain":"vt.edu","url":"https://alion.io/company/virginia-tech-news","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"PageUp","truth_index":null},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":null,"employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Blacksburg, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":70000,"max":82267,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":82267},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Photolithography","optional":false},{"name":"Electron Microscopy (SEM/TEM)","optional":true},{"name":"MATLAB","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-10T15:15:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-10","last_verified_at":"2026-11-11T14:20:09Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"Job Description\nVirginia Tech’s Nanoscale Characterization and Fabrication Laboratory (NCFL) seeks a skilled, creative Instrumentation and Tool/Process Engineer to advance the integration of scientific instruments, automation, and research data systems. The engineer will develop and validate tools that improve how researchers acquire data, monitor equipment, and conduct electron- and ion-beam characterization, correlative microscopy, and electron-beam lithography workflows.\nThis is a hands-on role for an engineer who enjoys solving problems across hardware, software, and scientific instrumentation. Projects may include instrument interfaces, sensors and telemetry, edge-computing components, automated acquisition, image and metadata pipelines, and workflows connecting instruments across facilities. The successful candidate will turn research objectives into reliable, documented capabilities that researchers and facility staff can use.\nThe engineer will collaborate with NCFL staff, faculty, students, vendors, and personnel in other Virginia Tech facilities. Work involving an instrument will follow the safety, access, qualification, scheduling, change-control, and operational requirements of the facility responsible for that instrument. Proposed modifications and deployments require approval through that facility’s established processes.\nThe position reports to the NCFL Director and works closely with NCFL research instrumentation managers on technical priorities, implementation, and validation. The engineer is accountable for meeting the technical requirements and acceptance criteria established with the relevant managers, who provide technical review and acceptance of work affecting their instruments and workflows.\nRequired Qualifications\nAssociate's degree in instrumentation, engineering, physics, materials science, microscopy, computer science, or a related discipline, or a bachelor's degree with equivalent relevant training and experience.\nExperience operating, maintaining, troubleshooting, developing, or integrating advanced scientific instruments or laboratory systems.\nExperience in at least one of the following: instrument automation, data acquisition, microscopy, metrology, sensors and telemetry, or scientific instrument software.\nDemonstrated ability to diagnose technical problems systematically and develop practical solutions.\nAbility to produce clear technical documentation and communicate effectively with researchers, engineers, vendors, and facility staff.\nAbility to manage assigned technical work independently and collaborate on projects involving multiple teams.\nPreferred Qualifications\nExperience with dual-beam focused ion beam/scanning electron microscopy (FIB/SEM), electron-beam lithography, other charged-particle instruments, or nanofabrication equipment.\nExperience developing instrument interfaces or working with vendor APIs, communication protocols, embedded systems, or edge-computing hardware.\nProgramming experience relevant to scientific instrumentation or data workflows, such as Python, LabVIEW, MATLAB, or a comparable language or platform.\nExperience with image acquisition and processing, machine vision, correlative microscopy, or scientific data and metadata pipelines.\nExperience commissioning equipment, developing qualification procedures, or validating instrument modifications in an operational laboratory.\nExperience in a shared-user research facility, including coordination of equipment access, user needs, safety, scheduling, and configuration control.\nFamiliarity with version control and maintainable software development practices.\nPay Band\n4\nOvertime Status\nNon-Exempt: Eligible for overtime\nAppointment Type\nRestricted\nSalary Information\n$70,000-$82,267; commensurate with experience\nHours per week\n40\nReview Date\nNovember 30, 2026\nAdditional Information\nWe are unable to sponsor work visas for this position.\nThe successful candidate will be required to have a criminal conviction check.\nAbout Virginia Tech\nDedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech pushes the boundaries of knowledge by taking a hands-on, transdisciplinary approach to preparing scholars to be leaders and problem-solvers. A comprehensive land-grant institution that enhances the quality of life in Virginia and throughout the world, Virginia Tech is an inclusive community dedicated to knowledge, discovery, and creativity. The university offers more than 280 majors to a diverse enrollment of more than 36,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students in eight undergraduate colleges, a school of medicine, a veterinary medicine college, Graduate School, and Honors College. The university has a significant presence across Virginia, including Blacksburg, the greater Washington, D.C. area, the Health Sciences and Technology Campus in Roanoke, sites in Newport News and Richmond, and numerous Extension offices and research institutes.A leading global research institution, Virginia Tech conducts more than $650 million in research annually.\nVirginia Tech endorses and encourages participation in professional development opportunities and university shared governance. These valuable contributions to university shared governance provide important representation and perspective, along with opportunities for unique and impactful professional development.\nVirginia Tech does not discriminate against employees, students, or applicants on the basis of age, color, disability, sex (including pregnancy), gender, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, ethnicity or national origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, or military status, or otherwise discriminate against employees or applicants who inquire about, discuss, or disclose their compensation or the compensation of other employees or applicants, or on any other basis protected by law.\nIf you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact Erin Poff at  during regular business hours at least 10 business days prior to the event.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6082,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"associate","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Professional development"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Higher Education"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-10T18:44:33Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":60,"reasons":["conf:0","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-11T05:49:22Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":82267,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/virginia-tech-instrumentation-and-tool-process-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/virginia-tech-instrumentation-and-tool-process-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-11T14:28:55Z","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":26655,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-12T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"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":35633},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=35633"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fvirginia-tech-instrumentation-and-tool-process-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"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%2Fvirginia-tech-instrumentation-and-tool-process-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"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%2Fvirginia-tech-instrumentation-and-tool-process-engineer"},{"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/virginia-tech-instrumentation-and-tool-process-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fvirginia-tech-instrumentation-and-tool-process-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":4031397}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"vt.edu","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":4031397},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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