Photonic Design Manager - CA, San Jose, United States
Originally posted 1 September 2026 by the employer — open 19 days.
This role focuses on silicon photonics for co-packaged optics.
About the role
This role leads a team of silicon photonics design engineers to bring high-quality photonics technologies to market. The focus includes developing best practices for device design, circuit analysis, and DFx for product-quality PICs for co-packaged optics.
What you'll do
- Lead and manage a design team to deliver advanced integrated silicon photonic devices.
- Collaborate with internal and external teams to define and drive foundry technology and supply chain requirements.
- Establish and maintain best-practices for DFx across photonic designs.
What you'll need
- Subject matter expertise in integrated photonics with a track record of shipping products.
- Prior line management experience.
- Bachelor, Masters or PhD degree in Physics/Electrical Engineering.
Nice to have
- Strong working experience in managing photonic design teams.
- Hands-on experience in integrated photonics.
- Experience bringing a photonic product from R&D to HVM.
- Experience working with Cadence/Synopsys, Ansys FDTD/MODE, TCAD, HFSS, EMX, COMSOL.
- Photonic design and analysis software development, such as in Python/Matlab or Verilog-A.
- Deep expertise in optical communication from device physics to link architecture.
- Familiarity with cross-disciplinary skillsets in high-speed design, test systems, optical control, hardware/firmware design, advanced electronic and photonic packaging, reliability, and qualification testing.
Skills: silicon photonics, photonic design, PICs, co-packaged optics, device design, circuit analysis
This role has been open 19 days — well below the 61-day median for Optical/Photonics IC Design roles.
Optical/Photonics IC Design · Photonics
|
Open roles in category
121
|
Median days open
61 d
|
Median salary
$195k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | AMD | All employers we track in this specialty (121 roles · 31 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 3 | 121 |
| Median days open | 19 d | 61 d (−42 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $195k |
Skills observed across this category: silicon photonics, photonic design, PICs, co-packaged optics, device design, circuit analysis
Who's hiring in this category
- GlobalFoundries · 18 open roles · median 55 d
- Lightmatter · 17 open roles · median 68 d
- Coherent Corp · 15 open roles · median 61 d
- Lumentum · 8 open roles · median 48 d
- PsiQuantum · 6 open roles · median 110 d
- Ayar Labs · 5 open roles · median 45 d
How we counted: 121 open Optical/Photonics IC Design (Photonics) roles from 31 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 21 Sept 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.