Senior Laser & SOA Characterization Engineer - Mountain View, CA, United States
$210,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 2 July 2026 by the employer.
About the role
You will lead advanced characterization, bring-up, validation, and root-cause analysis of semiconductor lasers, tunable laser sources, DFB lasers, external-cavity lasers, laser diodes, and semiconductor optical amplifiers. The work spans optical and electro-optical test setups to evaluate devices across current, voltage, temperature, and optical feedback for photonic computing systems.
What you'll do
- Lead hands-on characterization of semiconductor lasers, tunable laser sources, DFB lasers, DBR/ECL lasers, laser diodes, and semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). - Measure and analyze key performance metrics, including output power, wavelength, optical spectrum, SMSR, RIN, linewidth, gain, saturation power, ASE, noise figure, tuning behavior, optical stability, and thermal sensitivity. - Develop advanced LIV, L-I-V-T, wavelength tuning, power stability, RIN, SMSR, linewidth, and long-term drift measurement methodologies across operating and aging conditions. - Build, validate, and maintain automated optical and RF measurement setups using Python, PyVISA, LabVIEW, MATLAB, or similar tools. - Debug complex optical, electrical, RF, and thermal measurement issues, including optical coupling, polarization sensitivity, back-reflection, RF noise, grounding, calibration error, and thermal drift. - Translate characterization data into actionable feedback for laser design, photonics integration, packaging, system architecture, and reliability teams.
What you'll need
- PhD or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Applied Physics, Photonics, Optics, or a related technical field. - 5+ years of hands-on experience in semiconductor laser, SOA, photonics, or optical device characterization. - Strong understanding of semiconductor laser physics, optical gain, carrier dynamics, rate equations, thermal effects, feedback sensitivity, linewidth, RIN, and optical noise mechanisms. - Deep hands-on experience with optical and electro-optical lab measurements, including threshold current, slope efficiency, wall-plug efficiency, LIV curves, SMSR, and wavelength tuning. - Experience operating optical and RF instruments, such as laser current drivers, TEC controllers, OSAs, optical power meters, photodetectors, RF spectrum analyzers, oscilloscopes, bias tees, optical filters, and polarization controllers. - Strong Python programming experience for instrument automation, data collection, plotting, statistical analysis, and automated reporting.
Nice to have
- PhD in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Applied Physics, Photonics, Optics, or a related field. - Prior experience characterizing DFB lasers, DBR lasers, tunable lasers, ECLs, laser diodes, or SOAs for integrated photonics or optical communication systems. - Experience with advanced laser-noise measurements, including RIN, linewidth, phase noise, frequency noise, optical feedback sensitivity, and relaxation oscillation analysis. - Familiarity with rate-equation modeling, gain modeling, thermal modeling, optical feedback analysis, and wavelength tuning behavior. - Experience with III-V semiconductor materials, heterogeneous integration, laser packaging, fiber coupling, optical isolators, and thermal control. - Experience with high-speed optical or RF measurements involving fast photodetectors, RF spectrum analyzers, oscilloscopes, LNAs, bias tees, and calibration/de-embedding.
This role has been open 111 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 | 2244 · 112 employers |
| Median days open | 111 d | 112 d (−1 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.