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 primarily from PPO’s office in Waterloo Ontario. To ensure a smooth onboarding and integration, this role requires 5 days a week on-site for the first 3 months, transitioning to 3 days a week on-site on an ongoing basis. On-site days are full days during standard daytime business hours.
Compensation
The salary range for this role is $110,000 - $115,000 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.
PPO is looking for a Senior Software Developer to design and implement high-quality software across our product ecosystem. This is a broad, high-impact engineering role: you'll spend most of your time on general software development and design, with meaningful involvement in the machine learning infrastructure that runs on our systems.
Working within an agile environment and a steady release cadence, you will deliver and maintain robust software, lead code reviews and design sessions, and collaborate across the broader organization to drive our technology forward.
In This Role, You Will Work On
- End-to-End Architecture: Design and develop software for complex, multi-instrument smart imaging systems - spanning edge inference, cloud upload, and the user display.
- Technical Leadership: Act as the senior developer on major roadmap initiatives, taking accountability for scoping, architecting, and delivering epics.
- Scale & Performance: Architect and optimize systems capable of processing over 16 million data points per minute for 24/7 industrial production environments.
- ML Tooling: Build and enhance infrastructure and tooling for the ML model lifecycle to reduce time-to-market.
- Cloud & Edge Development: Develop and maintain tools for both cloud infrastructure (AWS) and remotely deployed edge systems.
- Code Quality: Write clean, scalable, and well-tested code (primarily Python, with some JavaScript), championing unit, integration, acceptance, and UI testing.
- Deployment Strategy: Support on-site system commissioning and deployment, prioritizing long-term automation while handling short-term manual interventions as required.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work alongside other teams to systematically address technical debt and solve fundamental data challenges.
- Mentorship: Lead code reviews, facilitate design sessions, and actively mentor junior developers to foster a culture of engineering excellence.
- Documentation: Maintain clear, comprehensive documentation of software internals, deployment processes, and development standards.
- Modern Workflows: Leverage generative AI programming tools to automate routine tasks and accelerate engineering velocity.
You at PPO
What You Bring
- Proven track record of architecting and scaling distributed systems, with a strong grasp of modern software development processes and tooling.
- Strong proficiency in Python and industrial coding best practices, backed by deep expertise in Linux systems.
- Hands-on experience designing and implementing real-time data processing solutions.
- Professional experience operating within cloud environments, specifically AWS.
- A working understanding of ML frameworks and the practical realities of the ML lifecycle (training vs. inference, dataset versioning). The ability to directly contribute to MLOps tooling is a strong asset.
- An understanding of fail-safe design principles and security compliance frameworks (such as SOC 2).
- Demonstrated ability to mentor junior developers and foster a culture of quality, curiosity, and continuous improvement.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to distill complex technical concepts for diverse audiences.
- Willingness to participate in an organization-wide on-call rotation.
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. 