Senior Photonics Circuit Design Engineer - Mountain View, CA, United States
$150,000 - $200,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 15 October 2026 by the employer.
Lightmatter invented Passage™, the world’s first 3D-stacked photonics engine.
About the role
As a Photonics Circuit Design Engineer, you will design and model the photonic and analog sub-circuits that constitute Lightmatter's Guide™ laser products and Passage™ optical links.
What you'll do
- Construct and maintain high-fidelity compact and behavioral representations for active and passive silicon photonic elements, including waveguides, couplers, MZIs, micro-rings, and integrated III-V/SOA components.
- Incorporate process variations, dispersion metrics, thermal-optical tuning characteristics, and non-linear properties into component modeling.
- Partner with device engineers to extract and calibrate parameter sets using optical solvers, foundry process design kits, and physical silicon data to ensure high model correlation.
- Architect and deliver comprehensive sub-circuit simulations for Guide laser modules, encompassing optical sources, gain media, wavelength control loops, and associated analog interfaces.
- Implement integrated sub-circuit models for Passage interconnect blocks, including modulated ring arrays, filter banks, thermal controls, drive circuits, and receiver front-ends.
- Execute corner, statistical Monte Carlo, and margin analyses to establish component tolerances, evaluate yield metrics, and inform experimental test vehicles.
What you'll need
- Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, Photonics, or related discipline plus 2+ years of industry experience (or M.S. with 5+ years).
- Deep background in silicon photonic physics and analog circuit fundamentals, with proven capability in generating behavioral component models for circuit-level co-simulation.
- Practical expertise using photonic modeling platforms (Lumerical, RSoft, Tidy3D) and analog IC suites (Cadence Virtuoso/Spectre).
- Strong Python software skills for modeling, data extraction, and maintainability of shared engineering codebases.
- Analytical mindset capable of addressing complex, unstructured technical issues through data-driven decisions.
- Methodical approach to engineering, with an emphasis on structured review processes and simulation automation.
Nice to have
- Experience with microring modulators and filters, DWDM MUX/DEMUX, and thermal tuning.
- Experience with laser and III-V photonics: DFB, external-cavity or comb sources, SOAs, wavelength lockers, and heterogeneous integration.
- Analog front-end experience with TIAs, modulator drivers, and heater drivers or DACs as they interface to photonic devices.
- Experience with foundry silicon photonics PDKs and process variation data (for example GlobalFoundries, TSMC, Tower, AIM or imec).
- Lab experience correlating models to measurement: OSA, tunable lasers, OVA/LCA, VNA, and wafer-level testing.
- Publications or patents in photonic circuit design or modeling.
Skills: silicon photonic physics, analog circuit fundamentals, photonic modeling platforms, Cadence Virtuoso/Spectre, sub-circuit simulations
This role has been open 0 days — well below the 72-day median for Optical/Photonics IC Design roles.
Optical/Photonics IC Design · Photonics
|
Open roles in category
129
|
Median days open
72 d
|
Median salary
$201k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Lightmatter | All employers we track in this specialty (129 roles · 31 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 13 | 129 |
| Median days open | 90 d | 72 d (+18 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $201k |
Skills observed across this category: silicon photonic physics, analog circuit fundamentals, photonic modeling platforms, Cadence Virtuoso/Spectre, sub-circuit simulations
Who's hiring in this category
- Coherent Corp · 17 open roles · median 85 d
- GlobalFoundries · 15 open roles · median 77 d
- Lightmatter (this employer) · 12 open roles · median 91 d
- Lumentum · 9 open roles · median 72 d
- Marvell Technology · 8 open roles · median 101 d
- Intel Corporation · 7 open roles · median 55 d
How we counted: 129 open Optical/Photonics IC Design (Photonics) roles from 31 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 15 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. Figures refresh nightly.