Internship - Embedded Software

Spore; Paris; On-site; EUR 13,000 - 20,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Workspace equipment budget

Gymlib

Alan health insurance

Swile card

Quarterly team gatherings

Job summary

Spore in Paris is seeking a final-year Master’s/Engineering student to help operate Louis, our automated microscopy instrument. You will write embedded C/C++ firmware for our boards and the Python middleware that coordinates motion, illumination and image acquisition.

You will work at the hardware/software boundary, with on-site collaboration in a lab setting. English is required; French is a plus.

Qualifications

• Final-year Master’s or engineering student in Computer Science, Electronics, Embedded Systems, or related.
• Strong C/C++, plus clean and testable Python.
• Real understanding of hardware constraints, microcontroller architectures, and low-level debugging.
• RTOS and communication protocols (SPI, I2C, UART), plus motion and actuator control fundamentals.
• Comfortable reading a schematic, doing image processing in Python, and working with Git.
• Autonomous, rigorous, execution-oriented.
• English required, French a plus.

Responsibilities

• Firmware: embedded C/C++ on our boards, motion and illumination control with imaging-grade timing, sensor/camera/MCU interfacing, inter-board communication.
• Middleware & acquisition: Python hardware abstraction, instrument sequencing, state handling and error recovery; coordinating motion, illumination and camera triggering to get frames off the instrument reliably, with calibration, correction and acquisition quality checks.
• Bring-up: first boot on new board revisions, peripheral validation, low-level debug with a scope and logic analyzer.
• Tooling: visualization, batch processing over acquisition datasets, version-to-version comparison.

Skills

C/C++

Python

Embedded systems

RTOS

SPI/I2C/UART

Hardware debugging

Git

Education

Master's student

Engineering School student

Tools

Oscilloscope

Logic analyzer

Job description

About us

Spore.Biois a deeptech start-up born in 2023, building a new paradigm in the quality control systems in Food&Beverage, Cosmetics, and Pharmaceutics factories.

After spending a lot of time in factories environments, we saw the pain it was to make sure products were safe. Traditional quality control has heavy constraints and long waiting times. To change that, we decided to buildSpore.Bio, a new generation of microbiological testing.

Our team is dedicated to bringing technology and developing a cutting-edge solution, based on advanced optical and deep-learning technologies, to detect bacterial contamination within seconds.

The role

You'll write the software that makes Louis, our automated microscopy instrument, actually work C/C++ firmware on our electronic boards, and the Python middleware that orchestrates motion, illumination, and image acquisition. You sit exactly at the hardware/software boundary.

What you'll do

• Firmware: embedded C/C++ on our boards, motion and illumination control with imaging-grade timing, sensor/camera/MCU interfacing, inter-board communication.

• Middleware & acquisition: Python hardware abstraction, instrument sequencing, state handling and error recovery; coordinating motion, illumination and camera triggering to get frames off the instrument reliably, with calibration, correction and acquisition quality checks.

• Bring-up: first boot on new board revisions, peripheral validation, low-level debug with a scope and logic analyzer.

• Tooling: visualization, batch processing over acquisition datasets, version-to-version comparison.

About you

• Final-year Master's or Engineering School student — Computer Science, Electronics, Embedded Systems, or related.

• Strong C/C++, plus clean and testable Python.

• Real understanding of hardware constraints, microcontroller architectures, and low-level debugging.

• RTOS and communication protocols (SPI, I2C, UART), plus motion and actuator control fundamentals.

• Comfortable reading a schematic, doing image processing in Python, and working with Git.

• Autonomous, rigorous, execution-oriented.

• English required, French a plus.

Nice to have: optics basics — exposure, focus, illumination, noise, and what they do to an image.

We don't expect you to know everything on day one. Curiosity and drive matter more.

Why join

Real software on a real instrument, at the intersection of biophotonics, AI, and industrial automation with direct mentoring from the people who architected it.

Practical details

• Location: Paris, on-site. The instrument lives in the lab, and so will you.

Perks: workspace equipment budget, Gymlib, Alan health insurance, Swile card, quarterly team gatherings.

Recruitment process

1. Fit interview with the hiring manager (~30 min)

2. Technical case study — firmware, integration, or debug — plus debrief with the team

3. Culture-fit conversation with a Spore.Bio collaborator outside the team

4. On-site in Paris: founders, lab and assembly visit, Louis in action