Phd Software Engineer Jobs in Lawrence, MA (NOW HIRING)

Job Summary:
Onto Innovation is a leader in process control, specializing in advanced technologies for the semiconductor industry. The role involves developing and maintaining a complex inspection platform, applying systems thinking to translate customer needs into engineering tasks, and collaborating with cross-functional teams.
Responsibilities:
• Build and continuously refine an accurate mental model of the full Onto inspection platform—optics, motion, electronics, image acquisition, and software stack.
• Translate customer problems and application requirements into well-scoped engineering tasks by reasoning across subsystem boundaries.
• Agility to zoom from system-level architecture down into any specific areas: databases, algorithm performance, hardware, data flow, GPUs, GUIs, etc.
• Participate in New Product Development (NPD) alongside hardware engineers, application engineers, Technical Project Managers, and Program/Product Managers.
• Apply machine learning, image processing, computer vision, mathematics, and optics to develop algorithms integrated into Onto inspection platforms.
• Develop or contribute to optical imaging modeling/calibration and/or image segmentation, classification, and detection algorithms.
• Write, test, and debug software to ensure high-quality, reliable operation; optimize for performance and scalability.
• Perform or lead (based on experience) requirement analysis, detailed software design, production code development, and associated test plans.
• Participate in design/code reviews collaborating with systems engineers, software developers, and other technical staff.
• Leverage AI coding agents to accelerate implementation, while maintaining ownership of architecture decisions, design integrity, and code quality.
• Stay current with academic research and industrial practices in machine vision inspection, image processing, machine learning, and AI-assisted engineering.
• Document software designs, system-level rationale, development processes, and troubleshooting steps.
• Support teammates and, at senior levels, provide technical mentorship—especially in systems thinking.
• Contribute to improving the team's development workflows and tooling, including AI-assisted practices.
Qualifications:
Required:
• PhD, MS, or Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Physics, or related field.
• Doctorate degree with 0+ years related experience; or Master's degree with 0+ years related experience; or Bachelor's degree with 0+ years related experience.
• Demonstrated ability to reason about systems at multiple levels of abstraction—from high-level architecture down to implementation details.
• Strong problem-solving, analytical, and communication skills; able to articulate complex system behavior clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Competency (or demonstrable coursework) in at least one numerically focused environment such as Python or MATLAB, including linear algebra, image processing, and/or machine learning libraries.
• Competency (or demonstrable coursework) in at least one compiled or production language used in large-scale software systems, such as C++, C#, or Java.
Preferred:
• Experience in semiconductor inspection, machine vision, robotics, or similar highly technical domains where hardware/software co-design is essential.
• Track record of diagnosing cross-subsystem issues that span optics, electronics, firmware, and application software.
• Experience effectively using AI coding agents (e.g., Copilot, Cursor, Aider, or similar) to accelerate development.
• Experience with software development methodologies such as Agile, Scrum, or Kanban.
• Experience with version control and CI/CD practices.
• Experience debugging complex multi-threaded software environments.
• Familiarity with embedded systems, hardware communication protocols, and/or real-time constraints.
Company:
Onto Innovation stands alone in process control with our unique perspective across the semiconductor value chain. Founded in 2019, the company is headquartered in Wilmington, USA, with a team of 1001-5000 employees. The company is currently Late Stage.