Software Engineer Intern/Co-op

Phlux Technologies is a small Pittsburgh-based team building 3D safety sensors for industrial robots. The Software Engineer Intern/Co-op will develop software surrounding the sensor, including applications, 3D visualizations, device communication services, data tooling, prototypes, and test infrastructure, while collaborating across mechanical, optical, firmware, and software engineering.

What you'll do:

• Desktop and web applications that engineers use to set up, monitor, and troubleshoot the sensor
• Real-time 3D visualization — rendering sensor data and geometry so people can see what the device sees
• Device communication — services that move data between hardware and applications, including binary protocol work
• R&D and prototyping — quick exploratory code for things we're evaluating: new sensors, embedded hardware, approaches we want to try before committing to them. Some of it turns into product; some of it answers a question and gets thrown away
• Data pipelines and analytics tooling for turning raw sensor output into something people can reason about
• Test tooling and automation — fixtures, simulators, and the harnesses that let us verify behavior without hardware in the loop
• Documentation and written procedures, so what you build survives you

What they're looking for:

• 3rd or 4th year undergraduate, or Master's student, in Computer Science, Computer/Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related field
• You can write working code yourself — strong in at least one of Python, TypeScript, C, C++, or Rust. Most of what you'd write here is Python and TypeScript, but real depth in a systems language transfers fine, and you'd pick up the rest as you go
• You can read unfamiliar code and judge it. Handed a 500-line file you've never seen, you can say what it does — and whether it's doing it correctly. Code that compiles and passes its tests can still be wrong, and noticing that is a large part of this job
• You know what "right" should look like before you see it. You can hold a picture of how something ought to behave, then recognize when what's in front of you doesn't match
• You debug by reasoning, not by guessing. When something breaks you form a hypothesis and test it, rather than changing things until the symptom goes away
• Able to read C. A lot of our codebase is C. You wouldn't be writing it, but you'd be reading it regularly to understand what the hardware is doing and what the data actually means
• Comfortable with Git and normal collaborative development
• You can write clearly. You'd be documenting what you build and explaining your reasoning to people who weren't in your head when you built it
• Something you built that nobody assigned you. A game, a tool you made because you needed it, something that talks to an Arduino or a Pi, a robotics project, a mod, an open-source contribution. This matters more to us than GPA or coursework
• Junior, senior, or Master's student in CS, CE, ECE, Robotics, or similar
• Microcontroller or embedded work (Arduino, STM32, ESP32, Raspberry Pi)
• 3D graphics or game development — WebGL, Three.js, Unity, shaders, or similar

Benefits:

• Your work ships and you watch your own code run on real hardware.
• Mentorship: You'd work directly with experienced engineers across mechanical, optical, firmware, and software.
• Once you're established, we're flexible about remote days.