Senior Software Engineer

Role Summary

Your code won't just live in a cluster somewhere: it'll run inside cameras on factory floors and distribution centers around the world, and you'll have a real say in how our platform evolves next, from .NET and Python toward Rust.

Join a team developing software that powers Cognex machine vision systems used across manufacturing, logistics, and industrial automation environments worldwide.

We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer who enjoys shipping meaningful features, solving complex technical problems, and improving a long-lived production platform. You'll remain deeply hands-on with software deployed on our smart camera devices in customer environments, as part of a small, 10-person team that works with engineering teams around the world, primarily in the US.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and support production software primarily using .NET and Python, with occasional Angular work and increasing use of Rust (including our existing Rust library consumed by C++ products) as part of our long-term platform direction.
• Turn ambiguous product and technical requirements into well-defined designs, then take them through implementation, testing, and release as reliable customer-facing features.
• Investigate complex technical issues across a mature platform, including problems without an obvious solution.
• Make pragmatic technical decisions that account for product, system, and cross-team dependencies.
• Improve engineering methods, code quality, documentation, testability, system stability, and operational confidence.
• Contribute constructively through code reviews, documentation, and clear technical communication.
• Collaborate with local and global engineering teams to resolve dependencies and deliver coherent solutions.

Required Skills

• Strong production experience with .NET, object-oriented Python, Java, or a comparable language, with genuine comfort picking up new languages as our stack evolves. This team has worked across .NET, C++, and Python over the years, and has recently added Rust.
• Experience designing, developing, and supporting production software deployed on device hardware in customer environments, rather than purely cloud-native or Kubernetes-based platform engineering.
• Comfortable working in Linux development environments.
• Strong analytical, debugging, troubleshooting, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• Typically 5+ years of professional software engineering experience developing and maintaining production systems over multiple releases, or equivalent demonstrated capability.

Working Knowledge

• Experience working across backend systems and occasional frontend development using Angular, React, Vue, or another modern web framework.
• Applying resource-conscious design in constrained or operational environments.
• Some understanding of memory management, resource use, reliability, and performance, without requiring embedded or firmware development experience.

What You Can Learn in the Role

• Cognex products and the industrial automation domain.
• Angular specifically.
• Rust and its role in our longer-term platform direction.

Nice to Have

• Experience in industrial automation, embedded Linux, robotics, telecommunications, medical devices, network appliances, logistics, or other operationally complex domains.
• Experience supporting production software used in operational environments where downtime can disrupt manufacturing or logistics.
• Experience with Rust or C++, or a genuine interest in systems programming.
• Some experience translating ambiguous business or product input into technical designs, even if not in a formal ownership or backlog-management capacity.

What Makes This Role Different

Much of our software runs directly on smart camera devices deployed in customer environments worldwide. While this isn't embedded firmware development, it calls for the same mindset: valuing reliability, performance, and thoughtful use of resources over typical cloud-native trade-offs.

This team enjoys selecting the right technology for the job: over the years we've worked across .NET, C++, Python, and now Rust. If you enjoy continuous learning then you'll fit right in.

Ways of Working

• This role is based in Auckland and follows a hybrid working model, with three days in the office and two days working from home.
• Work closely with a US-based engineering team, with regular overlap for collaboration and alignment.
• Our customers operate globally, so some scheduling flexibility supports effective partnership.
• Support is an occasional rotation (approximately one week in every six), not a primary responsibility.