About the role
iPronics is seeking a Senior PIC Systems Engineer to join the PIC Architectures team within the Photonics Department, working on large-scale silicon photonics optical circuit switches. This is a system-level role focused on modelling and analysing the optical performance of complete photonic circuits and links, rather than component design or layout.
What you'll do
- Build and run system-level simulations of optical links using VPIphotonics (or similar tools) to evaluate signal integrity, BER, OSNR, and power penalties.
- Model and analyse optical crosstalk (coherent and incoherent) in large-scale switch fabrics and quantify its impact on link performance.
- Evaluate the interaction between the optical switch and transceivers (e.g., ER4, FR4, DR4), defining link budgets and system-level requirements.
- Correlate simulation results with lab measurements and contribute to system-level test plans.
- Develop circuit-level simulations of photonic integrated circuits, including bidirectional operation, WDM, and multiplexing/demultiplexing, to predict insertion loss, optical crosstalk, wavelength dependence, and polarization dependence.
- Translate system and customer requirements into architecture and component specifications, and develop Python-based modelling tools and workflows.
What you'll need
- MSc or PhD in Telecommunication Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, or a related discipline, with a focus on optical communications or integrated photonics.
- 3+ years of experience in optical system or photonic circuit modelling, in industry or research.
- Hands-on experience with VPIphotonics or equivalent optical system simulation tools.
- Understanding of optical communication fundamentals, including BER, OSNR, crosstalk penalties, link budgets, transceiver architectures, and modulation formats.
- Experience with photonic circuit simulation (e.g., Lumerical INTERCONNECT, VPI photonic circuit modules, or Python-based S-matrix solvers).
- Proficiency in Python for modelling, data analysis, and automation.
- Fluency in English (C1 level or higher).
Nice to have
- Experience with optical circuit switches, datacenter interconnects, or AI/HPC networking.
- Lab experience with high-speed optical test equipment (BERT, OSA) and comparing models with measured data.
- Knowledge of control and calibration of large-scale or programmable photonic circuits.
- Familiarity with software engineering practices (Git, testing) and HPC environments for large simulation sweeps.
More semiconductor jobs: Photonics jobs
First seen in our index 2 days ago, well below the 68-day median for Optical/Photonics IC Design roles.
Optical/Photonics IC Design · Photonics
|
Open roles in category
165
|
Median days since first seen
68 d
|
Category median salary (all employers)
$192k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | iPronics | All employers we track in this specialty (165 roles · 34 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 4 | 165 |
| Median days since first seen | 2 d | 68 d (+66 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | n/a | $192k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Coherent Corp · 17 open roles · median 112 d
- GlobalFoundries · 13 open roles · median 83 d
- Lightmatter · 12 open roles · median 109 d
- Ayar Labs · 11 open roles · median 4 d
- Lumentum · 10 open roles · median 99 d
- Marvell Technology · 10 open roles · median 54 d
How we counted: 165 open Optical/Photonics IC Design (Photonics) roles from 34 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 11 Nov 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there. Days are counted from when our index first saw each posting, not from the employer's original posting date.