Principal Electrical Engineer – High-Speed Optoelectronics & RF Systems - Milpitas, CA, United States
$126,200 - $210,350 USD yearly
Originally posted 5 October 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role involves leading the architecture, design, and development of advanced optoelectronic optical communication test systems, partnering with electrical, optical, mechanical, and manufacturing teams.
What you'll do
- Provide technical leadership for the development of complex optoelectronic products and subsystems.
- Perform system-level tradeoff analyses involving performance, reliability, manufacturability, cost, and schedule.
- Develop RF and microwave circuits from DC to 100 GHz and beyond.
- Design low-noise signal conditioning, amplification, control, and power management circuits.
- Perform signal integrity, power integrity, and electromagnetic compatibility analyses.
- Design and characterize photodiode-based receiver chains, including focusing optics, photodiodes, transimpedance amplifiers (TIAs), distributed amplifiers, and receiver front-end electronics.
What you'll need
- MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering or related field.
- 15+ years of experience developing complex electronic products.
- Deep expertise in analog circuit design.
- Strong RF and high-speed electronics design experience.
- Demonstrated experience designing photodiode-based receiver systems.
- Experience with optical design and concepts.
- Experience with optoelectronic hardware development.
- Strong proficiency with circuit simulation and modeling tools.
- Expertise in laboratory characterization, debugging, and root-cause analysis.
- Track record of bringing complex products from concept through production.
Nice to have
- Experience developing electronics and optoelectronic hardware for high-speed optical communications and datacenter networking applications.
- Experience with 100G, 200G, 400G, 800G, or higher-speed optical communication systems.
- Experience with optical transceivers, coherent optics, and photonic integrated circuits (PICs).
- Experience with MMIC components and capabilities.
- Experience with RF amplifier design and topologies.
- Experience with semiconductor optoelectronic devices and device characterization.
- Experience with optical test and measurement systems.
- Familiarity with high-performance instrumentation including oscilloscopes, vector network analyzers (VNAs), and optical/RF spectrum analyzers; TDECQ testing.
Skills: optoelectronic, RF, high-speed electronics, photodiode, signal integrity
This role has been open 4 days — well below the 114-day median for Hardware Systems Engineering roles.
Hardware Systems Engineering · Serdes Highspeed
|
Open roles in category
89
|
Median days open
114 d
|
Median salary
$199k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | MKS Instruments | All employers we track in this specialty (89 roles · 36 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 1 | 89 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 18 | 6078 · 146 employers |
| Median days open | 4 d | 114 d (−110 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $199k |
Skills observed across this category: optoelectronic, RF, high-speed electronics, photodiode, signal integrity
Who's hiring in this category
- NVIDIA · 14 open roles · median 92 d
- Qualcomm · 10 open roles · median 183 d
- AMD · 8 open roles · median 84 d
- Keysight Technologies · 5 open roles · median 141 d
- Lumentum · 4 open roles · median 11 d
- Broadcom · 3 open roles · median 193 d
How we counted: 89 open Hardware Systems Engineering (Serdes Highspeed) roles from 36 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 9 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.