POSITION OVERVIEWWe are seeking a
Principal Engineer, Silicon Photonics to join our rapidly growing team. This is a high-impact leadership role for someone who can shape product direction, translate customer needs into clear technical requirements, and drive cross-functional execution from concept through validation. The ideal candidate brings deep experience with packaged silicon photonics, including optical engine integration, assembly flows, and manufacturing considerations for next-generation optical interconnect products. The successful candidate will work closely with customers, contract manufacturers, suppliers, and internal development teams to meet product objectives while instilling a culture of quality, accountability, and continuous improvement.
What You'll Do:- Lead Product Definition: Own and drive product requirements for next-generation optical interconnects, balancing performance, manufacturability, cost, power, and time-to-market.
- Be the Customer and Product Voice: Serve as the primary technical interface with customers, foundry partners, and suppliers, ensuring product decisions are grounded in real-world use cases, market needs, and execution realities.
- Drive Cross-Functional Alignment: Create and own clear product requirements, aligning internal engineering teams, external partners, and key stakeholders around priorities, trade-offs, milestones, and deliverables for packaged optics solutions.
- Analyze and Optimize: Perform critical link analysis, using simulation and modeling to assess impairments like noise and distortion, ensuring our products deliver robust performance in real-world systems.
- Translate System Goals into Execution: Convert top-level product objectives into actionable requirements for silicon photonics, electronics, firmware, software, validation, and manufacturing partners.
- Lead Packaged Optics Execution: Guide the development of packaged silicon photonics solutions, including co-packaged optics and optical I/O approaches, with attention to assembly tolerances, fiber attach, thermal constraints, test strategy, reliability, and scale-up readiness.
- Validate: Define the complete testing strategy, from engineering verification and product validation to system integration. You will define test methodologies, select equipment, and be hands-on in the lab to bring our products to life.
Who You Are:- A seasoned technical leader with deep hands-on expertise in silicon photonics and packaged optics, with a strong track record of bringing complex products from concept to production.
- A natural collaborator who thrives in a multi-disciplinary, geographically diverse team environment.
- A strategic product thinker who can synthesize customer requirements, technical constraints, and business priorities into clear decisions and execution plans.
- A leader who is just as comfortable presenting a technical roadmap to executives as you are setting up an experiment in the lab.
Key Qualifications:- Proven experience in a principal-level technical leadership role developing and delivering photonics-based products.
- Deep expertise in silicon photonics design, performance characteristics, and trade-offs.
- Direct experience with packaged silicon photonics or optical engine development, including packaging trade-offs, integration constraints, and manufacturing considerations.
- Demonstrated ability to perform optical link budget analysis using simulation and modeling.
- Experience defining product requirements and driving execution across hardware, firmware, software, validation, and manufacturing teams.
- Experience defining test plans (EVT, DVT, SVT) and test methodologies for optical systems.
- Ability to work effectively and drive decisions within a fast-paced, startup environment.
- Must be hands-on in a lab environment.
Preferred Experience:- Experience with test automation frameworks and scripting (e.g., Python).
- Direct experience working with hyperscale data center customers or suppliers on packaged optics, co-packaged optics, or optical I/O solutions.
- Experience with fiber attach technologies, optical assembly processes, and package-level integration challenges for silicon photonics products.
Why Join Us?This is more than a job. It's a chance to get in on the ground floor of a well-funded company set to disrupt a multi-billion dollar market. You will have the autonomy to make a massive impact, the resources to execute your vision, and a significant stake in the company you help build.
What we offer- Competitive salary commensurate with experience
- Comprehensive benefits package including health insurance
- Professional development opportunities and certification support
- Access to cutting-edge technology and cloud platforms
- Collaborative work environment with cross-functional teams
