Controls Software Engineer

Background

The shipping industry accounts for ~3% of global CO2 emissions. If it were a country, it would rank above Germany (the 6th largest emitter in the world).

Currently, there’s no solution for ships to go 100% clean. Alternative power sources like hydrogen, ammonia, and onboard batteries are still 10-20 years away from maturity for large ships.

About Seabound

Seabound captures CO2 emissions from ships.

We are building a retrofittable device that traps the CO2 from a ship’s exhaust gas. It has the potential to be one of the simplest, safest, and most affordable solutions for zero-emissions shipping.

In 2022, we proved the concept on land and secured 6 LOIs (Letters of Intent) from major shipowners to purchase our systems from 2024 onwards. In the next 6 months, we will develop and demonstrate our first capture unit at sea. We are now recruiting a Controls Software Engineer to join our founding team to help realize and demonstrate this new category of maritime climate tech.

Roles and responsibilities

As a Controls Software Engineer, you will own the design, implementation, and testing of controls software that will run our carbon capture devices, from prototypes to production systems. You will also own data collection and analysis, create coding standards and frameworks, and address any other software needs of the company. Your work will directly prevent greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere and be instrumental in decarbonizing the shipping industry.

What You’ll Do:

• Design, develop and manage the software and control system of Seabound’s ship-based carbon capture system as well as the R&D facility

• Architect, write, test, and debug hardware controls code, backend and frontend software, emphasizing organization, structure, maintainability, and safety

• Develop software tools and systems for data collection, storage, analysis, and reporting

• Contribute to the testing and optimization of the carbon capture process on our land-based prototype unit

• Collaborate closely with other engineers on the team to understand system requirements; contribute to growing and building a strong engineering culture and team

• Work closely with customers, suppliers, contractors, and partners to accelerate product development

• Anything else that needs to be done in an early-stage startup

Skills and requirements

We are looking for:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in electrical/computer engineering, computer science, robotics, mechatronics, or related discipline plus 1-3 years of work experience

• Software development experience in both Linux and Windows; Python and C/C++ experience

• Familiarity with Ethernet/IP, EtherCAT, Profinet, or another industrial real-time Ethernet protocol

• Experience designing and tuning PID & model-based controllers across a variety of systems, including implementation considerations such as deadzone compensation, rate limiting, anti-windup, etc.

• Experience programming open source single board computers and microcontrollers, such as Arduino/Raspberry Pi, in addition to other common MCU platforms (e.g. STM32)

• Hands-on experience building and debugging electro-mechanical systems

• Someone who is resourceful, ambitious, excited to tackle hard problems that no one has solved before, and holds themselves and others to a high standard

• Someone who is passionate about decarbonizing the shipping industry and tackling the climate crisis

• Ability to operate effectively with high degrees of uncertainty and to execute on tasks against tight timelines and aggressive schedules

You should have several of the following experiences:

• Familiarity with various digital IO protocols used for embedded systems, including SPI, I2C, and TTL serial

• Experience with REST APIs, MQTT, and OPC-UA

• Experience in implementing and commissioning servo control systems and VFD-controlled motors

• Experience with TCP/IP network architecture and software development for network communication

• Experience in web application development and web-based dashboards

• Familiarity with containerized software deployment strategies (e.g. docker)

The following experiences are an extra bonus but not required:

• Mechanical/thermal/fluidic system modeling & simulation experience using MATLAB/Simulink, Python, or another numerical simulation environment

• Experience leading the development of a new hardware product/technology

• Experience owning significant responsibility in a fast-paced working environment

Seabound is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and strive to create an environment that is inclusive to all employees.