About General Flash

General Flash is re-inventing the process to convert metal oxides to metal. We are a dedicated team of builders - experts in materials, physics, chemistry, process and hardware engineering - united in our goal to re-shore metal production for critically important metals. We’re looking for exceptional candidates to join us!

The Role

General Flash is looking for an Industrial Software Engineer - Reactor and data pipeline to own the software and firmware behind our metal production reactors. You will design how operators run the reactors, how sensor data is captured and stored, and how that data connects to the experiments our engineers and scientists design. The role sits between hardware and data: one day you are writing control logic for a device on the reactor network, the next you are building the pipeline that ties a run's sensor history to its offline lab results. We take an AI-forward approach to engineering, and we expect you to use current tools, and build new ones, to move faster. We are flexible on level and years of experience. What matters most is evidence that you have owned real systems end to end and can work closely with a small, hands-on technical team.

Primary Responsibilities

Own software stack for our metal production reactors, from device-level code to the operator interface and data storage and retrieval systems.
Design the operating workflow and GUI that engineers and technicians use to safely set up, run, monitor, and shut down reactor runs.
Write and maintain software to query simple and complex instruments, including: power supplies, gas handling equipment, sensors, valves, and other devices over Ethernet and other communication buses.
Architect and build a data pipeline that captures reactor sensor data, stores it reliably, and makes it easy to query and analyze.
Develop and maintain pipelines to establish provenance of material and process data for all material produced: power/utility consumption, chemical characterization, imaging, physical properties, and other critical product and performance data.
Implement audit trails, and data pipelines compliant with regulated manufacturing requirements.
In conjunction with facilities team, define and maintain the reactor network layout, including segmentation between control devices, data systems and the wider company network.
Bring an AI-forward approach to your work: Adopt current AI and developer tools, build internal tools where none exist, and set up workflows deployed across the team.
Work with engineers and scientists to generate software requirements that deliver against project milestones.
Set software practices for the team, including version control, code review, testing and documentation.

Required Qualifications

B.S. in computer science, electrical engineering or equivalent.
Professional experience building and shipping software that others depend on. We will weigh scope and ownership over years.
Strong Python skills, including writing maintainable, tested code and structuring larger projects.
Fluency with Git and collaborative development (branching, pull requests, code review).
Experience communicating with hardware or instruments over Ethernet (for example TCP/IP sockets, Modbus TCP, SCPI, OPC UA or vendor SDKs).
Working knowledge of network fundamentals, including IP addressing, subnets, VLANs and segmenting control networks from general networks.
Strong understanding of machine-control fundamentals, including sensors and actuators, feedback control systems, interlocks and other safety components.
Experience designing how data is stored and retrieved, with relational databases, time-series stores or structured file formats.
Active use of AI tools in your own engineering work, and judgment about where they help, where they don't, and how they should be deployed to move fast with zero physical risk to equipment and your colleagues.
Excellent interpersonal skills: Ability to work directly with engineers and scientists to understand and gather requirements, explore tradeoffs, and agree on deliverables.

Preferred Qualifications

Full stack experience, with a focus on process and hardware vs. pure data science (need to touch grass).
Experience writing software for lab equipment, pilot plants, manufacturing lines or other physical systems, especially high-temperature, high-power, or gas-handling processes.
Familiarity and experience with DOD and NIST standards, and use of standards to develop complaint data pipelines (traceability, uuids, etc..)
Embedded or firmware development in C/C++ or on microcontrollers, work with PLCs and industrial controllers.
Experience building operator GUIs or HMIs (for example Qt/PySide, web front ends, etc…)
Experience developing/with SCADA, MES, or other industrially-relevant frameworks.
Experience building data pipelines and messaging frameworks for sensor or experimental data, including ingestion, validation, metadata, and lineage.
Familiarity with tools such as InfluxDB, TimescaleDB, PostgreSQL, Parquet/HDF5, or data platforms used in research settings.
Experience connecting process data to experiment design, design-of-experiments workflows, or electronic lab notebooks.
A track record of building internal tools or automation with LLMs, coding agents or similar AI tools.
Experience with Linux, containers and CI/CD for software that runs on dedicated hardware.
Background in materials, metallurgy, plasma, chemistry or another physical science.
Experience at an early-stage hardware or deep-tech company, where you set up practices rather than inherit them.

Work Environment and Safety

This is a 100% in person position, at our location in Cambridge, MA.

This position involves hands-on work in a laboratory with equipment that may operate at high temperatures, under vacuum, with high electrical power, and may utilize flammable compressed gases. Training and appropriate protective equipment will be provided.

What We Offer

Competitive salary, commensurate with, and based on, skills and experience.
Equity sign-on package.
Mentorship and the opportunity to grow across engineering disciplines.
Work in a small team, where your contributions directly shape our technology.
Benefits: Employee health insurance and dental plan.
Highly collaborative, 100% in-person environment
Paid holidays and flexible PTO

We do not work with recruiting or staffing agencies and will not pay fees for unsolicited referrals.

General Flash Corp. is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.

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