Join Formlabs if you want to bring ground-breaking professional 3D printers to the desktop of every designer, engineer, researcher, and artist in the world.
Maximilian King, Software Engineering Lead, shares everything you need to know about their Engineering team!
In this Video
Max discusses:
Formlabs 3D Printing Mission and Global Market Impact
Formlabs operates as a prominent hardware, materials, and software ecosystem developer in the 3D printing industry. The company designs and manufactures professional-grade desktop 3D printers and post-processors utilized by key global organizations, including NASA, Google, Tesla, and New Balance. Formlabs software functions as the critical connection point translating digital 3D models into physical, highly accurate physical parts. By managing the hardware, custom materials, and operating software concurrently, engineers at Formlabs build deeply integrated physical-digital products.
Software Engineering Teams and Tech Stack at Formlabs
The Formlabs software division consists of approximately 50 specialized software engineers, alongside a larger internal developer community of 150 code contributors. The engineering organization is structured into several core functional areas:
- Desktop Software: Responsible for model preparation, printer instruction delivery, and UI development.
- Embedded Firmware: Focused on low-level motor control and printer operations.
- Cloud and Web Products: Manages printer fleet administration and historical tracking.
- API and Automation: Focuses on software architecture and system interface designs.
The technology stack varies by functional engineering team:
- Desktop and Embedded Systems: Primarily written in C++ utilizing QT and QML to ensure cross-platform compatibility across Windows, macOS, and Linux.
- Advanced Firmware and IoT: Uses custom Linux builds and low-latency network protocols.
- Cloud and Web Applications: Built with Django and React, deployed across AWS and Google Cloud Platform, using relational databases and monitoring suites like Grafana.
Formlabs Software Engineering Culture and Demo or Die Philosophy
Formlabs operates with a highly interdisciplinary development process. Unlike traditional SaaS companies, software engineering at Formlabs is not siloed from hardware and materials science. This integration requires engineers to address physical-world variables, such as materials elasticity, printer configuration, and mechanical tolerances.
The division actively practices a demo first culture, emphasizing rapid, iterative prototyping over lengthy documentation. This agile mindset allows engineers to test code physically on 3D printers to validate quality improvements directly, establishing a tight feedback loop with a highly active user community.
The Formlabs Software Engineering Hiring and Interview Process
The interview pipeline at Formlabs is structured to assess real-world systems engineering capabilities rather than abstract academic puzzles:
- Technical Recruiter Screen: Initial conversations are led by recruiters who possess strong technical knowledge of the Formlabs product ecosystem.
- Practical Engineering Assessment: Candidates complete a take-home project or a HackerRank assessment designed around practical daily engineering tasks.
- Technical Loop and Architecture Review: Virtual or on-site interviews involve meeting cross-functional team members to assess system design skills, problem-solving, and cultural fit.
- Leadership Engagement: In line with its entrepreneurial culture, every incoming engineering candidate has a direct discussion with the CEO.
Career Growth and Professional Development at Formlabs
Formlabs software engineers operate within a meritocracy where individual prototypes can scale directly into production-grade beta features. Because the engineering team works alongside hardware, electrical, and materials scientists, the role provides unique exposure to complex systems engineering. This collaborative environment offers substantial professional development opportunities for Boston-area technology professionals looking to build software that directly controls physical, global-scale manufacturing hardware.
