Field Application Engineer - USA - CA - San Jose (Ridder), United States
$149,900 - $214,150 USD yearly
Originally posted 11 August 2026 by the employer.
Lumentum serves the AI Ecosystem with optical module needs for Hyperscalers, GPU, and AI System providers.
About the role
As a Field Application Engineer, you will join a global team of multi-disciplined technical experts, working alongside Product Line Management, Sales, and R&D to engage customers across Lumentum's product portfolio and help develop and drive design-ins. This role supports the Cloud & Networking Platform.
What you'll do
- Provide pre-sales technical support for the development and implementation of complex products, applications, and solutions.
- Negotiate technical specifications and performance trade-offs with customers to satisfy system and module needs.
- Participate in customer design reviews and contribute to technical responses for RFI/RFQs.
- Collect customer requirements and application use cases in collaboration with sales and directly with customers.
- Bring up transceiver modules at customer sites, troubleshoot customer prototypes, and develop solutions for end-user applications.
- Manage primary customer product documentation, including corrective actions, analysis reports, and manufacturing test plans.
What you'll need
- Degree in physical sciences, electrical engineering, or equivalent.
- Minimum of 3 years engineering experience designing, developing, or testing coherent optical modules and components, including DSPs, receivers, modulators, and lasers.
- Direct experience in product development and NPI processes with an optical components/modules company or a system OEM.
- Practical working knowledge of transceiver hardware, including specification and test of firmware/hardware interfaces.
- Familiarity with standards documents like CMIS, C-CMIS, Ethernet, Infiniband.
- Familiarity with popular switch/router platforms and ONTs, including Arista, Cisco, and Nvidia.
- Familiarity with Python.
- Ability to travel domestically and internationally.
Skills: Field Applications Engineer, design-ins, technical support, optical modules, transceiver
This role has been open 67 days — below the 71-day median for Applications FAE roles.
Applications FAE · Photonics
|
Open roles in category
27
|
Median days open
71 d
|
Median salary
$158k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Lumentum | All employers we track in this specialty (27 roles · 14 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 3 | 27 |
| Median days open | 65 d | 71 d (−6 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $158k |
Skills observed across this category: Field Applications Engineer, design-ins, technical support, optical modules, transceiver
Who's hiring in this category
- FormFactor · 6 open roles · median 23 d
- Keysight Technologies · 3 open roles · median 87 d
- Lumentum (this employer) · 3 open roles · median 64 d
- STMicroelectronics · 3 open roles · median 130 d
- Teradyne · 3 open roles · median 29 d
- Analog Devices · 1 open role · median 163 d
How we counted: 27 open Applications FAE (Photonics) roles from 14 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 17 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there. Figures refresh nightly.