Principal Software Engineer (Postprocessing) at Cadence

Job description

At Cadence, we hire and develop leaders and innovators who want to make an impact on the world of technology. Position Summary We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer with deep expertise in CAE post-processing to provide technical leadership for MSC Apex and related simulation results workflows. This role is responsible for designing, developing, and guiding capabilities for result import, result case management, scalar/vector/tensor visualization, contouring, XY plotting, animation, result probing, derived calculations, min/max extraction, result comparison, reporting, and automated post-processing of large-scale engineering simulation data. The successful candidate will act as a senior individual contributor and technical authority, partnering across engineering, architecture, QA, and product teams to deliver accurate, scalable, performant, and maintainable post-processing solutions aligned with customer engineering workflows. Key Responsibilities • Architect, design, and develop CAE post-processing capabilities for engineering simulation products, ensuring accurate result interpretation, interactive performance, scalability, robustness, and maintainability. • Provide technical leadership for result readers, result data models, result case/load step/time step management, contour plots, XY plotting, animations, result probing, derived result calculations, reporting, and solver-specific result interpretation. • Serve as a senior technical authority for design reviews, feasibility analysis, risk assessment, debugging, performance optimization, and long-term architecture decisions. • Collaborate with product management, architecture, QA, program management, and engineering teams to translate customer workflow needs into actionable technical solutions. • Guide and mentor engineers on post-processing architecture, results data models, solver output handling, visualization patterns, numerical validation, regression testing, design quality, and engineering best practices. • Investigate complex result interpretation issues, visualization defects, plotting errors, data synchronization problems, performance bottlenecks, and customer-reported post-processing issues, driving them to resolution. • Contribute to technical roadmaps and communicate design tradeoffs, technical risks, and implementation plans clearly to stakeholders and leadership. Required Qualifications Education • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Computational Engineering, Computer-Aided Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or a related engineering discipline. Experience • 12+ years of software engineering experience delivering commercial or enterprise engineering software, preferably in CAE, simulation results, post-processing, visualization, or scientific computing domains. • Deep expertise in CAE post-processing workflows, including result import, result case management, scalar/vector/tensor handling, contouring, XY plotting, animation, result probing, derived calculations, result comparison, report generation, and solver-specific result interpretation. • Deep understanding of CAE results data structures, result cases, load steps, time steps, modes, scalar/vector/tensor data, coordinate systems, units, result transformations, and result metadata. • Hands-on experience implementing workflows for contouring, XY plotting, animations, result probing, min/max extraction, derived result calculations, result comparison, report generation, and automated post-processing. • Strong background in C++ software development for large-scale engineering, scientific, CAE, graphics, visualization, or data-intensive desktop applications. • Experience designing and implementing post-processing services, result readers, result databases or data models, plotting frameworks, contouring workflows, animation workflows, report generation pipelines, and production-quality simulation results components. • Working knowledge of solver output formats, transie