Senior Software Engineer (Robotics)

Location: Cambridge, England, United Kingdom; the role involves hands-on work with physical robots and connected bioprocess equipment at Melbourn Science Park.

Company

Cellular Origins develops robotic automation technology for large-scale cell therapy manufacturing, reducing production costs, labour, and human error.

What you will do

• Own the design, architecture, implementation, debugging, and technical direction of maintainable software components, services, and interfaces across the robotics platform.
• Integrate software with mobile robots, devices, factory systems, and connected bioprocess equipment.
• Develop and run hardware-based integration tests, diagnose failures, and verify fixes under realistic operating conditions.
• Build quality through test-driven development, automated testing, continuous integration, code review, and technical documentation.
• Mentor engineers, share technical knowledge, and collaborate across software, systems engineering, and other disciplines to deliver working features.
• Maintain test evidence and documentation supporting development, verification, and regulatory requirements.

Requirements

• Significant experience delivering complex software across design, implementation, testing, and debugging.
• High proficiency in Python.
• Strong understanding of object-oriented programming and software design patterns.
• Experience building backend services or applications and integrating systems through APIs or messaging.
• Experience with distributed systems using message-oriented or event-based approaches.
• Good engineering practices, including version control, automated testing, and continuous integration.
• Ability to mentor engineers, explain technical concepts clearly, and collaborate across disciplines.
• Genuine interest in robotics and willingness to work hands-on with hardware while learning to test and troubleshoot integrated systems.

Nice to have

• Robotics or automation experience, including ROS or ROS 2, mobile robots, robotic arms, motion control, or machine vision; this experience may come from personal projects, study, research, or professional work.
• Experience integrating software with hardware, low-level peripherals, or industrial communication protocols such as MQTT.
• Experience with factory control, automation, orchestration, or safety-relevant software.
• Frontend development using TypeScript or JavaScript with a web framework.
• Experience with virtualization, containers, cloud services, or IoT integration using GCP, Azure, or AWS.
• Experience developing software in medical or biotechnology settings, including verification, traceability, and regulatory documentation.

Culture & Benefits

• Full-time role within an entrepreneurial and collaborative engineering environment.
• Work from renovated office, laboratory, and engineering spaces at Melbourn Science Park.
• Annual bonus, 25 days of holiday, and a 10% employer pension contribution.
• Private medical insurance for employees and dependants, enhanced family-friendly leave, and life insurance worth six times salary.
• Subsidised lunches, electric car leasing, cycle-to-work scheme, and season ticket loan.