Photonics Hardware Validation Engineer - Mountain View, CA, United States
$177,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 9 July 2026 by the employer.
Passage™
About the role
Lightmatter is hiring a Photonics Hardware Validation Engineer to drive testing, characterization, and validation of silicon photonics-based optical interconnect products. In this role, you will design, develop, and build photonic test systems critical to the characterization and validation of Passage™ and optical interconnect hardware.
What you'll do
- Take responsibility for chip bring-up, testing, and validation of optical interconnect products aligned to product specifications, xDVT, and interoperability testing. - Contribute to test plan development, test bench configuration planning, setup of lab test equipment, and troubleshooting of validation setups. - Conduct electro-optic, link-level testing in the lab using industry-standard practices and equipment. - Collaborate with device, hardware, software, digital, and analog design teams to support end-to-end development, validation, and qualification.
What you'll need
- Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, or a related field. - Hands-on experience with standard bench test equipment for data communications, including electro-optic link testing and characterization in a lab environment. - Familiarity with PCB design, including hardware testing and debugging of electro-optic circuits. - Basic scripting skills for automation of lab tests, analysis of results, and report generation. - Solid understanding of electrical and optical blocks in transmitters and receivers to enable chip bring-up and link testing. - Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot and debug electrical and optical building blocks in a transceiver to triage bugs and root-cause performance gaps.
Nice to have
- PhD in a related field. - Experience with high-speed data communication systems, including NRZ and PAM4 signaling. - Familiarity with industry standards such as IEEE, OIF-CEI, or similar data communication standards. - Proficiency in Python, MATLAB, or similar tools for scripting and automation. - Prior experience leading or mentoring junior engineers in lab validation and testing workflows.
This role has been open 103 days — below the 112-day median for Silicon Test Engineering roles.
Silicon Test Engineering · Silicon Validation
|
Open roles in category
192
|
Median days open
112 d
|
Median salary
$129k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Lightmatter | All employers we track in this specialty (192 roles · 57 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 3 | 192 |
| Open roles in the wider Silicon Validation & Test family | 9 | 2229 · 113 employers |
| Median days open | 110 d | 112 d (−2 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $129k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Teradyne · 14 open roles · median 115 d
- Renesas Electronics · 12 open roles · median 103 d
- Qualcomm · 11 open roles · median 114 d
- onsemi · 10 open roles · median 136 d
- Infineon Technologies · 9 open roles · median 118 d
- Marvell Technology · 9 open roles · median 118 d
How we counted: 192 open Silicon Test Engineering (Silicon Validation) roles from 57 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 21 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 Silicon Validation & Test family row. Figures refresh nightly.