Merge Labs
Senior Software Engineer, Platform SDK / Instrument Control
$185K–$260K
San Francisco Bay Area · On-site · Senior · Full-time · Posted Aug 11, 2026
About the job
Build the software platform and APIs that control custom scientific instruments and enable reliable, reproducible experimental protocols.
What you'll do
- Create reusable instrument integrations and a coherent device abstraction for heterogeneous hardware.
- Design a shared orchestration layer for trigger management, checkpoints, and safe experiment execution; add safety and reproducibility features.
- Support high-throughput data acquisition, enable platform engineers, advise on hardware integration, and mentor scientists and engineers.
What they ask for
- Experience building hardware or instrument integrations for a team.
- Strong systems engineering skills, including real-time device control, concurrency, memory, and performance.
- Excellent API/SDK design skills, including clean abstractions and handling asynchronous operations and large data.
- Ability to design software with non-technical users and their experience in mind.
Nice to have
- Experience with scientific instrumentation such as ultrasound or microscopy, lab automation, or high-throughput data acquisition.
Pay
$185K – $260K USD base salary
Tools
Python, Ultrasound-on-chip
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative