Computational Physicist – Scientific Software Engineer

Sciotex; Northern (KY); On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Sciotex is seeking a PhD-level Computational Physicist / Computer Vision Algorithm Engineer to design and implement advanced algorithms for industrial inspection, measurement, and automation systems.

You will integrate physics, imaging, and software engineering to extract precise measurements from imperfect data, and to deploy robust, scalable software in production environments.

Qualifications

• PhD in Physics, Applied Physics, Engineering Physics, Electrical Engineering, CS, Mathematics, or related quantitative field.
• Experience developing algorithms for computer vision, scientific imaging, image processing, signal processing, simulation, or related fields.
• Strong programming in LabVIEW, MATLAB, Python and/or C++.
• Experience with NumPy, SciPy, OpenCV, scikit-image, or equivalents.
• Solid foundation in linear algebra, probability, statistics, numerical optimization, and experimental data analysis.
• Ability to take ambiguous problems from concept to prototype and robust implementation.
• Experience with Git/SVN and disciplined software practices including testing and documentation.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Design, prototype, validate, and optimize computer-vision, image-processing, and scientific-computing algorithms for industrial applications.
• Develop methods for image calibration, enhancement, segmentation, detection, tracking, classification, measurement, and anomaly detection.
• Apply physics-based modeling, numerical methods, statistical inference, and machine learning where best.
• Build production-quality scientific software in Python and/or C++, with APIs, docs, tests, and version control.
• Improve runtime performance via optimization, parallel computing, GPU acceleration, and profiling.
• Analyze experimental and field data; design experiments to quantify performance, uncertainty, robustness, and failure modes.
• Collaborate with engineers to integrate algorithms into complete industrial systems.
• Support deployment in factory or customer environments, including troubleshooting real-world data.
• Communicate tradeoffs and results clearly to technical teams and customers.
• Help establish best practices for validation, data management, reproducible research, and software development.

Skills

Python

C++

LabVIEW

MATLAB

OpenCV

NumPy

SciPy

Git/SVN

Communication

CUDA

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Education

PhD in Physics or related quantitative discipline

Tools

CUDA

PyTorch

TensorFlow

ONNX

TensorRT

Job description

The opportunity

Sciotex is seeking a PhD-level Computational Physicist / Computer Vision Algorithm Engineer to develop the algorithms and scientific software behind next-generation industrial inspection, measurement, and automation systems.

You will work at the intersection of physics, imaging, applied mathematics, and software engineering. This is an opportunity for someone who enjoys solving difficult real-world problems: extracting accurate measurements from imperfect visual data, building robust algorithms for variable industrial environments, and transforming research concepts into reliable, maintainable product software.

What you’ll do

• Design, prototype, validate, and optimize computer-vision, image-processing, and scientific-computing algorithms for industrial applications.
• Develop methods for image calibration, enhancement, segmentation, detection, tracking, classification, measurement, and anomaly detection.
• Apply physics-based modeling, numerical methods, statistical inference, and machine learning where they provide the best solution.
• Build production-quality scientific software in Python and/or C++, with clear APIs, documentation, automated tests, and version control.
• Improve runtime performance through algorithmic optimization, parallel computing, GPU acceleration, and profiling.
• Analyze experimental and field data; design experiments to quantify system performance, uncertainty, robustness, and failure modes.
• Partner with optical, mechanical, electrical, controls, and software engineers to integrate algorithms into complete industrial systems.
• Support deployment in factory, laboratory, or customer environments, including troubleshooting challenging real-world data conditions.
• Communicate technical tradeoffs and results clearly to technical teams, product leaders, and customers.
• Help establish best practices for algorithm validation, data management, reproducible research, and scientific software development.

Required qualifications

• PhD in Physics, Applied Physics, Engineering Physics, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related quantitative discipline.
• Demonstrated experience developing algorithms for computer vision, scientific imaging, image processing, signal processing, simulation, or related technical fields.
• Strong programming ability in LabVIEW, MATLAB, Python and/or C++.
• Experience with scientific-computing tools such as NumPy, SciPy, OpenCV, scikit-image, or equivalent.
• Solid foundation in linear algebra, probability, statistics, numerical optimization, and experimental data analysis.
• Ability to take an ambiguous technical problem from concept and prototype through validation and robust implementation.
• Experience using Git/SVN and disciplined software-development practices, including testing, code review, documentation, and reproducibility.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Preferred qualifications

• Industrial machine-vision, automated inspection, metrology, robotics, manufacturing, semiconductor, life-sciences imaging, energy, aerospace, or similar experience.
• Experience with deep-learning vision models and frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, ONNX, or TensorRT.
• Background in optics, photonics, computational imaging, 3D vision, structured light, hyperspectral imaging, particle physics or sensor fusion.
• Experience with C++, CUDA, GPU programming, real-time systems, edge devices, or embedded deployment.
• Familiarity with inverse problems, physics-informed ML, Bayesian methods, uncertainty quantification, or digital-twin modeling.
• Experience moving research or prototype code into scalable, tested, customer-facing software.

What success looks like

Within your first year, you will have delivered validated algorithms that improve the accuracy, throughput, robustness, or automation level of an industrial vision product; established measurable performance benchmarks; and contributed reusable scientific software that other engineering teams can build upon.

Why join us

• Work on technically meaningful problems where physics and software directly affect product performance.
• Own algorithm development from early research through production deployment.
• Collaborate with a multidisciplinary team across hardware, optics, controls, data, and software.
• Build systems that bring measurable quality, safety, and productivity gains to industrial customers.
• Small ambitious company environment with a lot of intellectual freedom.

Please Note: Sciotex is not accepting applications from recruiting firms or fully remote candidates at this time. This position is not eligible for Visa sponsorship. This is a direct hire position working onsite to our office in Newtown Square, PA.