Silicon Photonics Component Design Engineer - New Mexico, Albuquerque, United States
$141,910 - $269,100 USD yearly
Originally posted 20 August 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role involves developing and optimizing silicon photonic components for Intel Foundry's Silicon Photonics Process Development and Manufacturing (SPDM) team.
What you'll do
- Design, simulate, and support the development of photonic components, including lasers, modulators, high-speed photodetectors, passive devices, and waveguide structures.
- Perform simulations, tolerance studies, and design evaluations to improve device performance, manufacturability, and reliability.
- Support test chip execution activities, including design implementation, layout coordination, tape-out preparation, and silicon validation.
- Analyze characterization and test data to identify performance trends, root causes, and opportunities for design enhancement.
- Contribute to photonic device models, simulation workflows, and automation tools.
- Evaluate emerging photonic technologies and support proof-of-concept demonstrations.
What you'll need
- PhD in Electrical Engineering, Physics, or a related technical discipline with 2+ years of experience in silicon photonic device design, simulation, characterization, or related research environments; OR Master's degree in a related field with 4+ years of relevant experience.
- Experience with high-speed photonic devices, including optical modulators and photodetectors.
- Experience with photonic design and simulation using tools such as Sentaurus, Silvaco, Lumerical, HFSS, ADS, RSoft, or equivalent.
- Experience with photonic device testing and characterization; data analysis using MATLAB, Python, JMP, or similar tools.
- Experience with photonic layout design using Cadence, KLayout, or comparable design environments.
Nice to have
- Experience with silicon photonic modulator or detector design.
- Familiarity with micro-ring modulators or advanced photonic materials such as BTO, TFLN, or III-V integration.
- Basic understanding of high-speed electronic ICs including TIAs, drivers, equalization techniques, and DSP concepts.
- Experience with optical link modeling and system-level performance analysis.
- Experience with photonic devices operating at 100G+ data rates.
- Familiarity with semiconductor foundry development processes.
- Publications, conference presentations, or patent contributions in photonics or related fields.
- Experience working on customer-facing, product development, or cross-functional engineering projects.
- Experience with active and passive silicon photonic devices including heaters, carrier injection devices, and passive waveguide structures.
Skills: Silicon Photonics, photonic components, modulators, photodetectors, waveguide structures
This role has been open 33 days — well below the 63-day median for Optical/Photonics IC Design roles.
Optical/Photonics IC Design · Photonics
|
Open roles in category
121
|
Median days open
63 d
|
Median salary
$195k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Intel Corporation | All employers we track in this specialty (121 roles · 32 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 5 | 121 |
| Median days open | 39 d | 63 d (−24 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $195k |
Skills observed across this category: Silicon Photonics, photonic components, modulators, photodetectors, waveguide structures
Who's hiring in this category
- GlobalFoundries · 18 open roles · median 57 d
- Lightmatter · 16 open roles · median 70 d
- Coherent Corp · 15 open roles · median 63 d
- Lumentum · 8 open roles · median 50 d
- PsiQuantum · 6 open roles · median 112 d
- Ayar Labs · 5 open roles · median 47 d
How we counted: 121 open Optical/Photonics IC Design (Photonics) roles from 32 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 23 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.