PHI is seeking a Software Architect to guide the long-term technical direction of its instrument software platform, blending architectural leadership with hands-on development across hardware control, automation workflows, and scientific data analysis.
Responsibilities
- Steer the strategic direction and evolution of the instrument software platform architecture at PHI, ensuring scalability and reliability
- Design and implement robust object oriented software systems for instrument control, automation, and data analysis
- Define and refine API architectures to enable modular, extensible, and maintainable software ecosystems
- Identify and pursue opportunities to improve system architecture, scalability, reliability, and maintainability
- Contribute to modernization and evolution of existing software platforms
- Collaborate with scientists and engineers to translate analytical procedures into dependable automation workflows
- Enhance the user experience of complex instrumentation software
- Mentor software engineers and provide architectural guidance across the development team
- Lead design discussions and participate in architecture and code reviews
- Coordinate with engineering teams in the United States and Japan
Requirements
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline
- At least eight years of professional software development experience
- Strong expertise in object oriented software design and architecture
- Experience designing modular systems and API based architectures
- Background developing complex software systems involving automation, workflow management, or hardware integration
- Excellent analytical, troubleshooting, and problem solving skills
- Strong communication skills and ability to work effectively in cross disciplinary teams
About Physical Electronics
Physical Electronics USA (PHI) is the world’s leading supplier of ultra high vacuum surface analysis instrumentation.
PHI develops sophisticated software that controls complex scientific instruments, orchestrates automated experiments, acquires scientific data, and enables advanced analysis workflows.
Our engineers collaborate closely with scientists and multidisciplinary engineering teams to translate analytical workflows into reliable software systems.
Position Overview
PHI seeks a Software Architect to guide the long term technical direction of our instrument software platform. The role combines deep software development expertise with architectural leadership across a multidisciplinary environment that includes hardware control, automation workflows, and scientific data analysis.
The architect will evolve PHI's software platform while maintaining the reliability and performance required for advanced analytical instrumentation used by research institutions and industry worldwide. This role provides architectural vision, mentors engineers, and remains actively involved in hands-on development.
Location: Chanhassen, MN onsite
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience developing software for scientific instruments, laboratory systems, or industrial equipment
- Experience designing automation frameworks or workflow driven systems
- Experience integrating software with hardware control systems or data acquisition systems
- Experience improving user experience for complex technical applications
- Experience or vision for modernizing or evolving large legacy software systems
Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate enjoys solving complex system level problems that involve both software and physical instrumentation. They bring architectural vision while remaining hands-on in development, and they thrive collaborating with scientists and engineers to build reliable systems that support advanced materials research.
Why Work at PHI
- Work on sophisticated scientific instruments used by leading research institutions and advanced manufacturing companies
- Collaborate with experts in materials science, engineering, and software development
- See your software interact directly with real instrumentation and scientific experiments
- Contribute to technology that helps advance next generation materials and devices
