Responsibilities

• Own the development, operation and lifecycle evolution of the microscopy-control software platform, enabling reliable automation and streamlined workflows.
• Design and integrate software and electronic control components that enable new instrument capabilities, data acquisition and real-time analysis.
• Translate scientific and user requirements into maintainable control schemes and user interfaces with engineers, physicists, biologists and research users.
• Establish and apply professional software-engineering practices across architecture, testing, version control, documentation, sharing, deployment and long-term maintenance.
• Evaluate and introduce suitable approaches, including AI-enabled automation, where they improve robustness, reproducibility or scientific value.
• Diagnose and resolve complex software–hardware integration issues, balancing performance, usability, reliability and research needs.
• Maintain records that support reproducibility, knowledge transfer, dissemination and future development.
• Provide expert support and enable effective use of the platforms by EMBL and external researchers.
• 
  

You Have

Skills, Experience and Qualifications

• MSc or similar degree in software engineering, computer science, engineering, physics or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education, training and experience.
• Demonstrated experience developing maintainable software for hardware control, scientific instrumentation or similarly complex technical systems.
• Advanced software-development skills in one or more relevant programming languages or development environments, such as C++, Python, LabVIEW, Java or MATLAB.
• Experience designing graphical user interfaces for instrumentation control, using frameworks such as Qt or Tk, and integrating software components across processes or programming languages.
• Strong software-engineering capability across architecture, integration, testing, documentation, software sharing and long-term maintenance, including experience using version-control systems such as Git.
• The ability to collaborate with software and hardware engineers, physicists, biologists and other stakeholders, translating scientific requirements into technical solutions and communicating clearly with non-specialists.
• 
  

You May Also Have

• Experience developing low-level, embedded or real-time control systems using languages, platforms or environments such as C, Rust, Arduino, microcontrollers, NI Real-Time or NI FPGA.
• Experience programming specialist computing hardware, including FPGAs or GPUs, using technologies such as CUDA, VHDL, Verilog or Xilinx Vivado, particularly for high-speed or real-time image-data processing.
• Experience integrating scientific instruments and hardware—including cameras, detectors, positioning stages, lasers and data-acquisition devices—using relevant communication protocols such as MQTT, ideally within microscopy, bioimaging or adaptive hardware-control workflows.
•