Job Description

The Company:

• Cognex is the global leader in the exciting and growing field of machine vision. With over $800 million of cash in the bank and no debt, we are a financially strong international company with a culture that maintains the fast paced, creative environment. Our employees, proudly called “Cognoids,” take their work but not themselves seriously. Our Work Hard, Play Hard, Move Fast culture recognizes our employees for their innovation, perseverance, and hard work in a fun, rewarding, and quirky environment. 

The Team: Platform Software:

• Responsibilities include:
• Create Linux distributions to support our custom hardware platforms
• Provide system software support for our highly successful industrial machine vision products—DataMan, In-Sight, and SnAPP
• Construct reusable software modules that abstract the hardware peripherals
• Create and maintain common system services 
• Validate and bring-up customer embedded hardware boards
• Produce manufacturing test software payloads

The Role: Principal Software Engineer:

Are you a Linux expert? Do you have a track record of driving key technology initiatives? Are you passionate about real-time embedded systems? If so, look no further. The team is seeking a highly proactive individual that will help drive our custom Linux distribution for multiple Cognex products and contribute to enabling hardware subsystems. As a Principal Software Engineer, you will need to be a strong programmer with debugging skills that consider software and hardware. Solid build system experience including Yocto is highly desired. Come work on cutting edge embedded systems that are pushing the boundaries to what is possible in today’s factory automation and logistics environments. 

Essential Functions:

• Lead projects from analysis gathering, design, implementation, and product maintenance
• Write new device drivers and other firmware to control of custom hardware (cameras, USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, I/O, power management, lighting, etc.)
• Integrate device drivers into an embedded Linux system.
• Implement communication protocols, internal data handling and management and means of configuring devices
• Develop or modify overall distribution framework, supporting multiple custom embedded systems
• Gather application details and requirements and synthesize into a flexible easy-to-use design
• Occasional travel to Germany, Hungary, and the USA or customer sites.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Required
• Take on individual responsibilities and lead small teams
• Expert experience developing software in C/C++
• Experience with professional team software programming projects (development processes, source code control, formal bug tracking, etc.)
• Expert experience with Linux on embedded systems
• Team player and with proven ability to work effectively on multi-site development projects (Germany, Hungary, USA)
• Self-motivated, and able to work independently
• Additional
• 5+ years experience with ARM based embedded systems, device drivers and low level system programming
• Experience in writing and working with software unit tests
• Experience with network stack, file system and memory management
• Experience with software licensing, security or cryptography technology
• Experience with Git, Python, Yocto
• Good presentation, communication, organizational and interpersonal skills.
• Experience with technical photography or other optics

Minimum work experience and education required:

• A minimum of 10 years of relevant professional software development experience
• Bachelors or master’s degree in computer science, electrical engineering, or other relevant technical discipline

Additional Job Description

Equal Employment Opportunity

Cognex is an equal opportunity employer. Cognex evaluates qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, disability/handicap status or any other legally protected characteristic.