Principal Software Engineer (Postprocessing)

Cadence Design Systems; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Cadence Design Systems is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead CAE post-processing workstreams for MSC Apex and related workflows. You will architect and deliver scalable result import, case management, visualization, animation, reporting, and automated processing of large-scale engineering data.

The role combines hands-on development in C++, multi-platform debugging on Windows and Linux, and technical leadership across engineering, architecture, QA, and product teams to ensure robust,

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Computational Engineering, CAE, Applied Mathematics, or related field.
• 12+ years of software engineering experience delivering commercial or enterprise engineering software, preferably in CAE or scientific computing.
• Deep expertise in CAE post-processing workflows: import, case management, contouring, XY plotting, animation, reporting, and interpretation.
• Deep understanding of CAE results data structures, load steps, time steps, modes, units, and metadata.
• Hands-on experience implementing contouring, XY plotting, animation, min/max extraction, reporting, and automated post-processing.
• Strong C++ background for large-scale engineering and visualization apps.
• Experience designing post-processing services, readers, data models, plotting frameworks, and report pipelines.
• Working knowledge of solver outputs, transient/frequency-domain results, and usability requirements.
• Experience with MSC Apex, Patran, Adams, Nastran, Marc, Abaqus, ANSYS, HyperWorks, ParaView, Tecplot.
• Experience optimizing post-processing for performance, memory, and interactive visualization.
• Experience with AI-assisted tools (GitHub Copilot, Cursor) to improve productivity.

Responsibilities

• Architect, design, and develop CAE post-processing capabilities for engineering simulation products.
• Provide technical leadership for result readers, data models, plots, animations, and reporting.
• Serve as senior technical authority for design reviews, feasibility, risk, and architecture decisions.
• Collaborate with product, architecture, QA, and engineering teams to translate workflows into solutions.
• Guide engineers on post-processing architecture, data models, validation, and testing.
• Investigate complex interpretation issues, visualization defects, and performance bottlenecks.
• Contribute to roadmaps and communicate design tradeoffs and risks clearly.

Skills

C++ development

VTK

GPU/graphics optimization

Visualization workflows

Debugging

Large-scale software

Multi-platform development

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in CS/Engineering

Related engineering discipline

Tools

Visual Studio

GDB

LLDB

Valgrind

Perf tools

Job description

At Cadence, we hire and develop leaders and innovators who want to make an impact on the world of technology.

Position Summary We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer with deep expertise in CAE post-processing to provide technical leadership for MSC Apex and related simulation results workflows. This role is responsible for designing, developing, and guiding capabilities for result import, result case management, scalar/vector/tensor visualization, contouring, XY plotting, animation, result probing, derived calculations, min/max extraction, result comparison, reporting, and automated post-processing of large-scale engineering simulation data. The successful candidate will act as a senior individual contributor and technical authority, partnering across engineering, architecture, QA, and product teams to deliver accurate, scalable, performant, and maintainable post-processing solutions aligned with customer engineering workflows.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect, design, and develop CAE post-processing capabilities for engineering simulation products, ensuring accurate result interpretation, interactive performance, scalability, robustness, and maintainability.
• Provide technical leadership for result readers, result data models, result case/load step/time step management, contour plots, XY plotting, animations, result probing, derived result calculations, reporting, and solver-specific result interpretation.
• Serve as a senior technical authority for design reviews, feasibility analysis, risk assessment, debugging, performance optimization, and long-term architecture decisions.
• Collaborate with product management, architecture, QA, program management, and engineering teams to translate customer workflow needs into actionable technical solutions.
• Guide and mentor engineers on post-processing architecture, results data models, solver output handling, visualization patterns, numerical validation, regression testing, design quality, and engineering best practices.
• Investigate complex result interpretation issues, visualization defects, plotting errors, data synchronization problems, performance bottlenecks, and customer-reported post-processing issues, driving them to resolution.
• Contribute to technical roadmaps and communicate design tradeoffs, technical risks, and implementation plans clearly to stakeholders and leadership.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Computational Engineering, Computer-Aided Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or a related engineering discipline.
• Experience: 12+ years of software engineering experience delivering commercial or enterprise engineering software, preferably in CAE, simulation results, post-processing, visualization, or scientific computing domains.
• Experience: Deep expertise in CAE post-processing workflows, including result import, result case management, scalar/vector/tensor handling, contouring, XY plotting, animation, result probing, derived calculations, result comparison, report generation, and solver-specific result interpretation.
• Experience: Deep understanding of CAE results data structures, result cases, load steps, time steps, modes, scalar/vector/tensor data, coordinate systems, units, result transformations, and result metadata.
• Experience: Hands-on experience implementing workflows for contouring, XY plotting, animations, result probing, min/max extraction, derived result calculations, result comparison, report generation, and automated post-processing.
• Experience: Strong background in C++ software development for large-scale engineering, scientific, CAE, graphics, visualization, or data-intensive desktop applications.
• Experience: Experience designing and implementing post-processing services, result readers, result databases or data models, plotting frameworks, contouring workflows, animation workflows, report generation pipelines, and production-quality simulation results components.
• Experience: Working knowledge of solver output formats, transient and frequency-domain results, scalar/vector/tensor result handling, result transformations, units, coordinate systems, and customer-driven usability requirements.
• Experience: Experience with CAE products or simulation platforms such as MSC Apex, Patran, Adams, Nastran, Marc, Abaqus, ANSYS, HyperWorks, ParaView, Tecplot, or equivalent technologies.
• Experience: Experience optimizing post-processing operations for performance, memory usage, scalability, responsiveness, and interactive visualization of large simulation result datasets.
• Experience: Practical experience using AI-assisted software development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or similar tools to improve coding productivity, code review efficiency, documentation, and engineering workflows.

Technical Skills

• Strong proficiency in C++ for high-performance CAE post-processing, simulation result handling, solver output interpretation, plotting, visualization, or scientific computing applications.
• Required expertise in VTK and related visualization technologies, with practical experience applying rendering pipelines, actors/entities, scene graphs, cameras, picking/selection, overlays, and interaction models to CAE post-processing workflows.
• Strong understanding of 4D graphics fundamentals, including transformations, coordinate systems, mesh topology, level of detail, culling, clipping, transparency, texture mapping, shader concepts, GPU memory usage, and frame-rate optimization.
• Experience diagnosing graphics issues across Windows and Linux environments, including driver/runtime differences, GPU compatibility problems, rendering artifacts, memory leaks, crashes, and performance bottlenecks.
• Hands-on development experience on both Windows and Linux platforms, including platform-specific debugging, build, deployment, graphics/runtime diagnostics, and performance analysis.
• Strong debugging skills using tools such as Visual Studio Debugger, WinDbg, GDB, LLDB, core dump analysis, crash dump analysis, stack traces, logging frameworks, and diagnostic instrumentation.
• Experience with memory, performance, graphics, and concurrency diagnostics using tools such as Valgrind, AddressSanitizer, ThreadSanitizer, UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer, Intel VTune, Windows Performance Analyzer, Linux perf, GPU/graphics profilers, and similar profiling tools.
• Familiarity with automated testing strategies for post-processing workflows using Python, including regression tests, numerical result validation, visualization baselines, solver result comparison, benchmark models, and customer model validation.

Soft Skills

• Strong communication and collaboration skills.
• Problem-solving and analytical thinking.
• Ability to work independently and in a team environment.
• Strong organizational and time-management skills.

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