Optical Systems Engineer - San Jose, United States
Originally posted 22 May 2026 by the employer.
About the role
As an Optical Systems Engineer, you will own the definition and implementation of the optical interconnect architecture for accelerator systems and support scaling manufacturing capabilities. The technical focus centers on integrating technologies such as NPO, CPO, and OCI into inference-focused AI accelerator servers.
What you'll do
- Lead optical link architecture and system design for accelerator systems, evaluating interconnect technologies including NPO, CPO, and OCI. - Drive prototypes through definition, validation, and the transition to volume production. - Partner with Signal Integrity, PCB, ASIC, Thermal, and Mechanical Engineering teams to implement electrical-optical interfaces in AI servers. - Engage optical module, laser, and PIC suppliers on specifications, qualification, and integration. - Capture multi-rack interconnect requirements including topology, reach, connectors, and fiber management. - Bring up optical interfaces on accelerator cards and debug link issues using BERTs, sampling scopes, and OSAs. - Define optical bring-up strategies, test development for high-volume manufacturing, and optics documentation such as AVLs and fiber/cable BOMs.
What you'll need
- 5–10 years of experience in optical interconnect, transceiver, or photonic system design and development for high-density compute systems. - Expertise across optical interconnect architectures, including Co-Packaged Optics (CPO), Near-Packaged Optics (NPO), Optical Compute Interconnect (OCI), Linear Pluggable Optics (LPO), and traditional pluggables (OSFP, QSFP-DD). - Strong fundamentals in optical link engineering, including link-budget analysis, IL/RL, OSNR, eye diagrams, jitter, BER, and FEC margining. - Working knowledge of laser sources, modulators, TIAs, DSPs/retimers, and high-speed host interfaces such as 100G/200G-per-lane PAM4. - Familiarity with photonic-electronic co-design and advanced packaging methods, including fiber-attach (edge couplers, grating couplers, V-groove FAUs, detachable optical connectors), optical interposers, and 2.5D/3D heterogeneous integration. - Familiarity with relevant industry standards and MSAs (OCI, Open CPX, OIF, UCIe) and hands-on bring-up of optical links and PIC-based subsystems.
This role has been open 152 days — well above the 51-day median for Hardware Systems Engineering roles.
Hardware Systems Engineering · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
1003
|
Median days open
51 d
|
Median salary
$155k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Etched | All employers we track in this specialty (1003 roles · 104 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 9 | 1003 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 42 | 6291 · 145 employers |
| Median days open | 132 d | 51 d (+81 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $155k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Intel Corporation · 72 open roles · median 34 d
- KLA Corporation · 63 open roles · median 48 d
- Teradyne · 61 open roles · median 34 d
- NVIDIA · 53 open roles · median 72 d
- Applied Materials · 51 open roles · median 70 d
- AMD · 46 open roles · median 52 d
How we counted: 1003 open Hardware Systems Engineering (AI ML Hardware) roles from 104 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 — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.