Senior Software Developer
P&P Optica
Software Engineering
Waterloo, ON, Canada
CAD 110k-130k / year
Posted on Feb 13, 2026
About P&P Optica
P&P Optica (PPO) is using brand new technology to transform an old industry that affects everyone on the planet: the food industry. We apply a complex and highly sophisticated mix of hardware, software and huge datasets to improve both the safety and quality of the food we eat.
PPO is on a mission to become the world's leading food information company. We are moving beyond simple detection to provide real-time, actionable insights that help food processors optimize yield, reduce waste, and ensure safety at a global scale.
We’re a truly diverse team in every sense of the word, and our team is incredibly smart. Our culture is respectful and caring. PPO is a well-funded, scaling company with opportunities for career growth in every part of the organization.
If you’re looking for an opportunity to tackle challenging problems that affect everyone on the planet, PPO is the place for you.
Location
This role is a hybrid role, where you’ll work part of the time from home and part-time from PPO’s office in Waterloo Ontario.
Compensation
The salary range for this role is $110,000 - $130,000 CAD annually. The final offer will be determined based on a combination of factors, including:
- Relevant skills and experience: We assess each candidate's background, achievements, and demonstrated capabilities.
- Internal equity: We strive to maintain consistency and fairness across roles within our organization, aligning compensation with existing team members in comparable roles.
We are committed to transparency and fairness in our hiring process and welcome conversations about compensation throughout the recruitment process.
What You’ll Get To Do
This posting is for a current vacancy within our software team.
As a key member of the software team, you will be responsible for a range of projects focused on the software platform for our Smart Imaging Systems. Collecting, analyzing, and making decisions on millions of data points per second, our Linux-based software platform is the “brains” of our market-leading detection system.
From the development of data-capture pipelines to image processing utilizing machine learning modules, you will use your platform background to ensure the overall stability and performance of our systems.
In this role, you will:
- As a Senior Software Developer, you will be responsible for the development of entire feature sets from definition, design, management of development to full release
- Act as a Project Owner, taking full accountability for scoping, staffing, and defining success for major roadmap initiatives
- Negotiate technical options with Product Managers and stakeholders, moving beyond stating problems to providing actionable, business-aligned options
- Design and develop software for complex, multi-instrument, smart imaging systems
- Testing and deployment of new software releases
- Designing data collection requirements for new product development
- Support for on-site system commissioning, data collection, and support
- Enhance and optimize tooling for the data collection and model development processes focused on reducing total time-to-market
- Develop tools for use across multiple environments, including in-house development servers, remotely deployed systems and AWS cloud infrastructure
- Work with Python-based AI, machine-learning and chemometric algorithms for data analysis.
- Document the use, internals, and installation of software systems for coworkers and customers.
- Play a lead role in evolving our software platform to support Modular Inspection Systems, ensuring seamless over-the-air (OTA) updates and integration across diverse plant environments
- Architect systems capable of processing over 16 million data points per minute while maintaining the stability required for 24/7 industrial production
Additional tasks may include:
- Evaluation and integration of software development infrastructure
- Software support for hardware and applications engineering groups
- Work with external suppliers for hardware and software (e.g. cloud infrastructure)
- Support a range of physical and virtual servers running Windows and Linux
- Involvement in network maintenance, security, redundancy planning and architecture for local and cloud applications, often with huge data sets
You at PPO
You are a high-level thinker who wants to work in a fast-paced, growing company that is helping its customers to be more successful through the use of innovative products and solutions. You thrive in a multidisciplinary environment, translating complex concepts from spectroscopy, chemometrics, and hardware engineering into robust software solutions. You’re results-oriented and care about ensuring that our designs meet high standards of performance and quality. You have a positive attitude, care about doing things right, and are motivated by making a positive impact.
Skills & Experience
Software Experience:
- Solid experience with software development processes and tooling
- Experience with the management of software projects (new feature releases)
- Strong understanding of concurrency, distributed systems and other core software principles
- Ability to architect, implement and prove out effective AI-based solutions for complex soft-real time data processing problems
- Significant Linux experience is an asset
- Industrial experience with Python - and coding best practices
- Knowledge of cloud computing ecosystems such as AWS, Azure or GCP (with a strong preference of AWS)
- Comfortable with both low-level embedded software and higher-level, whole-system abstractions
- Experience building software within SOC 2 or similar security frameworks, with a focus on data integrity, availability, and confidential processing
- Strong understanding of system redundancy and fail-safe design for 'soft-real time' industrial environments
- Demonstrated ability to use AI-enabled development tools to accelerate coding, conduct code reviews, and conduct 'what-if' analysis on complex architectural decisions
Communication and Teamwork:
- Actively participate in cross-functional 'Tiger Teams' to solve fundamental technical debt and foundational data normalization challenges
- Act as a technical mentor to intermediate and junior developers, fostering a culture of curiosity and 'doing things right' through code reviews and architectural guidance
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with experience documenting software designs
- Ability to work effectively as part of a fast-paced, multi-disciplinary team with clear communication to all team members and management
- Our office is located in Waterloo, ON and this role will require you to spend a minimum of 3-4 days per week in the office to interact with our hardware and support production activities
Bonus Skills & Experience
- Familiarity with C/C++ and hardware interfacing techniques
- Experience with automation using microcontrollers and/or PLCs
Life at PPO
You’ll love working at PPO. Here’s why:
Open Culture: Our culture is built on openness and trust. We thrive together as a diverse team, celebrating what connects us and learning from what makes each of us unique.
Supportive Environment: We value collaboration and care, from celebrating birthdays and milestones to challenging one another to grow personally and professionally. Trust, honesty, and teamwork are at the heart of how we deliver value.
Work-life Balance: We move with urgency when it matters most, but we also know that life outside of work matters too. We make sure you have the time and flexibility you need with flex days and vacation time that help you recharge and show up as your best self.
Health Benefits: PPO offers very competitive benefits, including health, dental, vision and more for you and your dependents.
Hybrid Work Model: Depending on your role, you might work from home, our office or both.
Ongoing Learning: Curiosity is one of our superpowers. Learning is woven into everything we do, from hands-on collaboration to formal training and education. We lead with curiosity and imagine without limits, encouraging every team member to keep growing.
P&P Optica is committed to supporting a culture of diversity across our organization. Our hiring practices align with human rights laws, guaranteeing every person equal treatment in regard to employment and opportunity for employment, regardless of race, color, creed/religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital status. We welcome and encourage applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.
