Silicon Photonic Engineer - San Jose, United States
Originally posted 28 August 2026 by the employer — open 23 days.
About the role
What you'll do
- Serve as the primary technical interface with customers, foundry partners, and suppliers.
- Create and own clear product requirements, aligning internal engineering teams and external partners for packaged optics solutions.
- Perform optical link analysis using simulation and modeling to assess impairments.
- Convert top-level product objectives into actionable requirements for silicon photonics, electronics, firmware, software, validation, and manufacturing partners.
- Guide the development of packaged silicon photonics solutions, including co-packaged optics and optical I/O approaches, with attention to assembly tolerances, fiber attach, thermal constraints, test strategy, reliability, and scale-up readiness.
- Define the complete testing strategy, from engineering verification and product validation to system integration, and be hands-on in the lab.
What you'll need
- Proven experience in a technical leadership role developing and delivering photonics-based products.
- Deep expertise in silicon photonics design, performance characteristics, and trade-offs.
- Direct experience with packaged silicon photonics or optical engine development, including packaging trade-offs, integration constraints, and manufacturing considerations.
- Demonstrated ability to perform optical link budget analysis using simulation and modeling.
- Experience defining product requirements and driving execution across hardware, firmware, software, validation, and manufacturing teams.
- Experience defining test plans (EVT, DVT, SVT) and test methodologies for optical systems.
- Must be hands-on in a lab environment.
Nice to have
- Experience with test automation frameworks and scripting (e.g., Python).
- Direct experience working with hyperscale data center customers or suppliers on packaged optics, co-packaged optics, or optical I/O solutions.
- Experience with fiber attach technologies, optical assembly processes, and package-level integration challenges for silicon photonics products.
Skills: silicon photonics, packaged optics, optical interconnects, optical engine integration, co-packaged optics, optical link analysis
This role has been open 23 days — well below the 61-day median for Optical/Photonics IC Design roles.
Optical/Photonics IC Design · Photonics
|
Open roles in category
121
|
Median days open
61 d
|
Median salary
$195k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Lumilens | All employers we track in this specialty (121 roles · 31 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 4 | 121 |
| Median days open | 45 d | 61 d (−16 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $195k |
Skills observed across this category: silicon photonics, packaged optics, optical interconnects, optical engine integration, co-packaged optics, optical link analysis
Who's hiring in this category
- GlobalFoundries · 18 open roles · median 55 d
- Lightmatter · 17 open roles · median 68 d
- Coherent Corp · 15 open roles · median 61 d
- Lumentum · 8 open roles · median 48 d
- PsiQuantum · 6 open roles · median 110 d
- Ayar Labs · 5 open roles · median 45 d
How we counted: 121 open Optical/Photonics IC Design (Photonics) roles from 31 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 21 Sept 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.