Senior Director, Software, Platform Engineering

Senior Director, Software, Platform Engineering

PacBio (NASDAQ: PACB) is a premier life science technology company that designs, develops, and manufactures advanced sequencing solutions to help scientists and clinical researchers resolve genetically complex problems.  Our mission is to enable the promise of genomics to better human health. Genomics is core to all biological processes, and our advanced genomics tools provide scientists and clinical researchers the insights to better understand biology and health.  We are now entering the century of biology and genomics is at the heart of the next revolution.  Become part of the new paradigm in gene sequencing and help shape the future of genomic study by joining the PacBio team.

Position Summary: 

This role requires extensive hands-on DevOps experience deploying and updating software on complex physical hardware systems. Ideal candidates have led DevOps and platform teams responsible for software that runs on instruments, robotics, or other embedded systems that process real-world data.

As the Senior Director of Platform Engineering at PacBio, you will lead the teams responsible for designing, building, testing, and maintaining the platform infrastructure that powers our next-generation sequencing systems. Your mission is to enable reliable, scalable, secure, and high-performance software delivery across the organization. You will oversee Platform Engineering and Software QA, ensuring that both development enablement and quality assurance functions work cohesively to deliver world-class software. You will collaborate cross-functionally with development, verification/validation, manufacturing, and IT teams to ensure software quality, security, reproducibility, and operational excellence. Your leadership will directly impact the efficiency, reliability, and performance of PacBio’s sequencing instruments - empowering scientists and researchers worldwide.

Critical Role Requirement (Please Read Carefully):

Successful candidates must have extensive experience deploying software directly on physical hardware systems, including:

• Software delivery pipelines that target instruments, devices, or robotic systems
• Managing OS images, updates, and configuration on deployed hardware
• Supporting systems that interact with sensors, actuators, or data collection hardware
• Debugging failures across hardware, OS, middleware, and application layers

Candidates whose DevOps experience is limited to cloud-native services, SaaS platforms, or purely virtualized environments will not be a fit for this role.

Responsibilities:

• Own and evolve software delivery pipelines for deployment onto physical sequencing instruments, including build systems, packaging, deployment, and release management
• Implement and optimize CI/CD pipelines that support hardware-in-the-loop testing, instrument simulation, and deployment to physical devices
• Define and execute the vision and roadmap for platform engineering and software QA in alignment with company and R&D goals
• Provide technical leadership and strategic direction across platform, infrastructure, DevOps, QA, and secure software development functions
• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of platform and software QA engineers
• Drive continual improvement in software delivery efficiency, reliability, and scalability
• Establish and enforce secure development and QA practices, vulnerability management, and compliance with internal security standards
• Oversee the development and execution of a comprehensive software QA strategy, ensuring appropriate levels of verification, validation, regression, and performance testing across all product lines
• Define and enforce best practices for source control, build orchestration, and environment management
• Collaborate with development, IT, V&V, and manufacturing teams to streamline handoffs and enhance integration processes
• Oversee OS configuration, performance tuning, and system-level optimization for sequencing instruments and supporting platforms

Required Qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related discipline
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and release engineering
• 5+ years of hands-on experience deploying and updating software on complex hardware systems (e.g. scientific instruments, robotics platforms, medical devices, or similar)
• 10+ years of engineering experience, including 3+ years in a senior leadership role (Senior Manager, Director, or equivalent) and experience with formal software development
• Experience leading multi-disciplinary software organizations including platform engineering, DevOps, or software QA teams
• Strong understanding of software architecture, quality assurance principles and development best practices
• Track record of delivering high-quality software systems in complex, multidisciplinary environments
• Familiarity with regulatory compliance frameworks relevant to software development and experience working with Quality & Regulatory teams
• Experience in Linux systems administration on deployed hardware systems, including OS image management, device provisioning, performance tuning, and field diagnostics
• Familiarity with secure development practices and testing and tools for vulnerability detection and remediation
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages (e.g.; C++, Python, C#)
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration tools (Docker/Podman, Singularity)
• Strong problem-solving, analytical, and cross-functional communication skills
• Knowledge of Agile software development and QA methodologies
• Experience in debugging hardware and software issues in complex computer systems with a deep understanding of system-level interactions.
• Strong communication skills and ability to work closely with other teams and stakeholders.

Preferred Experience: 

• Understanding of automation, infrastructure-as-code, and configuration management tools (e.g., Ansible, Puppet, Chef)
• Experience developing software for scientific instrumentation, robotics platforms, or other hardware-based systems, ideally in regulated environments (biotech, medical devices, life sciences)
• In-depth knowledge of Linux internals and distributed systems
• Experience leading platform modernization or cloud transformation initiatives
• Demonstrated success in improving software delivery, platform reliability, and quality practices
• Understanding of FDA regulated processes 

Candidates must have current authorization to work in the United States without the need for present or future sponsorship. 

Non-Field Based Employees are required to be onsite Monday-Thursday (Friday work from home).  Depending on the role, some employees may be required to be 100% onsite.

You may be required from time to time to visit and work at PacBio locations and for such times as the Company considers necessary for the proper performance of your duties.

All listed tasks and responsibilities are deemed as essential functions to this position; however, business conditions may require reasonable accommodations for additional tasks and responsibilities.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, color, religion, national origin, protected veteran status, or on the basis of disability, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
 

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All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, color, religion, national origin, protected veteran status, or on the basis of disability, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process, or are limited in the ability or unable to access or use this online application process and need an alternative method for applying, you may contact us at 650-521-8000, or [email protected] for assistance.

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