Intern, Photonic Device Design
$50 - $60 USD hourly
About the role
As an intern in Photonic Device Design at Ayar Labs, you will apply device physics to advance bandwidth density, energy efficiency, and manufacturability for co-packaged optics platforms. The role involves taking optical designs from simulation to silicon and refining models using hardware measurements.
What you'll do
- Design, simulate, and optimize passive optical devices including couplers, gratings, and micro-ring resonators.
- Take photonic device designs from simulation to silicon and iterate based on hardware pipeline data.
- Connect simulation results to measurement data to characterize and iterate on device performance.
- Write structured Python code to support photonic design, modeling, and analysis in a team environment.
- Leverage AI tools for workflows such as device optimization and AI-assisted code development.
What you'll need
- Active enrollment in a Master's or PhD program in Electrical Engineering or another Engineering discipline with a photonics specialization.
- Understanding of photonic device physics covering waveguides, couplers, gratings, and micro-ring resonators.
- Experience with simulation tools for passive optical devices, such as FDTD and mode solvers.
- Structured programming experience in Python within a team setting.
- Familiarity with optical transceiver principles and co-packaged optics architectures.
- Experience connecting optical simulation models to physical measurements to iterate on performance.
Skills: silicon photonics, FDTD, couplers, micro-ring resonators, gratings, Python
More semiconductor jobs: Photonics jobs · San Jose jobs
This role has been open 1 day — well below the 71-day median for Optical/Photonics IC Design roles.
Optical/Photonics IC Design · Photonics
|
Open roles in category
161
|
Median days open
71 d
|
Category median salary (all employers)
$194k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Ayar Labs | All employers we track in this specialty (161 roles · 35 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 11 | 161 |
| Median days open | 1 d | 71 d (−70 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $194k |
Skills observed across this category: silicon photonics, FDTD, couplers, micro-ring resonators, gratings, Python
Who's hiring in this category
- Coherent Corp · 17 open roles · median 109 d
- GlobalFoundries · 13 open roles · median 80 d
- Ayar Labs (this employer) · 11 open roles · median 1 d
- Lightmatter · 11 open roles · median 116 d
- Lumentum · 10 open roles · median 96 d
- Marvell Technology · 10 open roles · median 51 d
How we counted: 161 open Optical/Photonics IC Design (Photonics) roles from 35 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 8 Nov 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.