Lead Photonics System Engineer - CA, San Jose, United States
$203,000 - $348,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 23 June 2026 by the employer.
Architect and bring to market advanced optical interconnects and integrated optical products.
About the role
As a Lead Photonics System Engineer, you will architect, specify, validate, and ramp integrated optical products and advanced optical interconnects. You will drive architectural decisions across circuit design, module design, integration, tray, and rack-level architectures while aligning specifications with hyperscale customer requirements.
What you'll do
- Define product features, capabilities, architecture, validation requirements, and technical specifications for optical interconnects. - Serve as the photonic subject matter expert across design, packaging, platform, and NPI teams to guide cross-functional decision-making, product direction, and FMEA. - Partner with GPU/CPU system architects, hyperscalers, and networking OEMs to translate customer requirements into internal design targets and system specifications. - Collaborate with SerDes, optical device, packaging, and SI/PI teams to optimize system performance across optical, electrical, and thermal domains while balancing power, cost, and manufacturability. - Support Optical Engine bring-up on XPU and switch platforms, conduct interoperability and system validation testing, and lead root cause analysis for performance gaps.
What you'll need
- Experience specifying, designing, validating, and ramping integrated optical products. - Experience driving architectural decisions across circuit design, module design, integration, tray, and rack-level architecture. - Demonstrated technical communication and presentation experience through technical publications, presentations, trainings, or executive briefings. - Bachelor's or Master's degree in a related discipline.
Nice to have
- Subject matter expertise on datacenter client optics. - Experience with high-baud optical communication devices and systems. - Working experience in optical transceiver design, fiber optics, RF modulation, and networking systems. - Experience with schematic and layout design for photonic integrated circuits. - Familiarity with MSA and IEEE standards for optical transceivers, CPO, and NPO (such as OCI, QSFP, OSFP, CMIS). - Experience testing transceiver performance, including TDECQ, receiver sensitivity, and stressed eye measurements.
Skills: photonic system, optical interconnects, optical transceiver design, fiber optics, integrated optical products
This role has been open 121 days — well above the 76-day median for Optical/Photonics IC Design roles.
Optical/Photonics IC Design · Photonics
|
Open roles in category
137
|
Median days open
76 d
|
Median salary
$197k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | AMD | All employers we track in this specialty (137 roles · 30 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 4 | 137 |
| Median days open | 38 d | 76 d (−38 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $197k |
Skills observed across this category: photonic system, optical interconnects, optical transceiver design, fiber optics, integrated optical products
Who's hiring in this category
- Coherent Corp · 16 open roles · median 92 d
- GlobalFoundries · 16 open roles · median 78 d
- Lightmatter · 15 open roles · median 97 d
- Lumentum · 10 open roles · median 79 d
- Marvell Technology · 9 open roles · median 41 d
- Intel Corporation · 8 open roles · median 65 d
How we counted: 137 open Optical/Photonics IC Design (Photonics) roles from 30 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 22 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.