Job Title: Principal Engineer, Electrical Engineering
Location: Cranbury, NJ
Division: Photonics
Department: Optogration, Inc.
Position Description:QCi is seeking a seasoned Electrical Engineer to join a team that develops and produces world class semiconductor-based detector products for a range of applications, including quantum sensing and information processing, optical communications, remote sensing (e.g., lidar and laser rangefinding), and high-performance imaging. Working collaboratively with other members of the team, the successful candidate will play a crucial role in the design, development, and testing of advanced optoelectronic components, modules, and instruments based on state-of-the-art III-V linear-mode avalanche photodetectors (APDs), single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs), and other compound semiconductor devices. This individual will be responsible for the development of scalable electronics solutions for market-leading products incorporating photodetector technologies as well as photonic integrated circuits (PICs). This highly collaborative role will involve engagement of engineering resources across multiple teams of QCi's fast-growing business.
Duties and Responsibilities - Lead hands-on development of photodetector-based modules and turn-key instruments through the full NPI cycle from concept through production release.
- Define product requirements, system architectures, performance budgets, interfaces, and verification methods.
- Design low-noise, stable high-voltage supplies with protection, monitoring, calibration, and temperature compensation.
- Design and lay out high-speed mixed-signal PCBs, including grounding, shielding, signal integrity, and power integrity.
- Develop FPGA logic, embedded firmware, and digital interfaces for timing, counting, control, communications, and data acquisition.
- Develop evaluation boards, prototypes, and test fixtures to characterize detector performance and reduce technical risk.
- Perform laboratory bring-up, characterization, debugging, and verification of boards, subsystems, and turn-key instruments.
- Develop control circuitry to support PIC-based module product developments
- Design electronic circuitry for SPAD bias control for gated and free-running operation
- Collaborate with detector, optical, mechanical, software, manufacturing, quality, and internal customer teams to deliver on product objectives.
- Mentor engineers and technicians while retaining direct ownership of critical design, integration, and troubleshooting work.
Required Skills and Experience - BS degree in EE or a related field, with at least 15-20+ years of relevant experience and the technical accomplishment expected of a high-level principal engineer.
- Demonstrated ability to design, build, test, and troubleshoot complex electronic products.
- Extensive experience designing low-noise, high-speed analog and mixed-signal circuitry for weak-signal detection.
- Proficiency in schematic capture and multilayer PCB layout
- Practical FPGA and embedded-systems experience
- Strong system-design skills, including requirements definition, architecture, trade studies, performance budgeting, and component selection.
- Extensive laboratory experience using high-speed and low-noise measurement equipment for hardware characterization and debugging.
- Practical knowledge of SPAD circuit operation, including excess bias control, gating, quenching, recharge, and avalanche-pulse detection.
- Proven ownership of the full NPI lifecycle, from initial requirements through verification, qualification, and production transfer.
- Strong project leadership, technical judgment, problem-solving, communication, and mentoring skills.
Additional Preferred Skills - Knowledge of semiconductor detector physics, packaging parasitics, thermal effects, and detector-related noise mechanisms.
- Experience with thermoelectric-cooler drivers, temperature sensing, and closed-loop thermal control.
- Strong understanding of SPAD performance metrics, including detection efficiency, dark count rate, dead time, afterpulsing, timing jitter, and count-rate limitations.
- Experience with photon counting, time tagging, time-to-digital converters, and precision event-timing techniques.
- Experience developing analog front-end receivers, including detector-TIA integration, pulse-processing circuits, and high-speed signal chains.
- Experience with APD focal-plane-array electronics, including managing outsourced ROIC design, multichannel readout, and high-throughput data handling.
- Experience with EMC, environmental qualification, design for manufacturability, and production test development.
Incumbent(s) in this position may be required to perform other duties and special assignments not specifically stated above. Statements outlined in this section are designated as essential job functions in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
