Silicon Photonics Engineer - Palo Alto, California, United States
$115,000 - $164,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 3 June 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role spans the full development cycle of silicon photonic devices and subsystems, from device concept generation and electromagnetic simulation to physical layout, tapeout support, and design verification. The position focuses on design and implementation efforts for complex switching circuit applications.
What you'll do
- Interact with device, hardware, and system design teams to assist in the overall development of photonic systems and devices. - Support foundry tapeouts with photonic device design, design of experiments, layout, design verification, PDK development, and software development. - Develop comprehensive documentation for tapeouts. - Provide multi-disciplinary support to component and systems teams by resolving technical issues associated with components, parts, or systems. - Apply quantitative analysis to determine the root cause of technical problems and propose, develop, and implement corrective solutions.
What you'll need
- PhD or equivalent in Electrical Engineering or Physics. - 5 years of relevant work or academic research experience in integrated photonics. - Strong computational and analytical skills applied to photonic device design and performance evaluation. - In-depth knowledge of photonic devices, including performance metrics and testing techniques. - Extensive experience with photonic design using commercial software platforms such as the Lumerical simulation suite. - Photonic layout experience using tools such as IPKISS, gdsfactory, or equivalent. - Extensive experience with Python for scientific applications and data analysis.
Skills: silicon photonics, photonic integrated circuits, IC design, Lumerical simulation, quantum computing
This role has been open 141 days — well above the 78-day median for Optical/Photonics IC Design roles.
Optical/Photonics IC Design · Photonics
|
Open roles in category
138
|
Median days open
78 d
|
Median salary
$197k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | PsiQuantum | All employers we track in this specialty (138 roles · 30 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 7 | 138 |
| Median days open | 141 d | 78 d (+63 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $197k |
Skills observed across this category: silicon photonics, photonic integrated circuits, IC design, Lumerical simulation, quantum computing
Who's hiring in this category
- Coherent Corp · 17 open roles · median 94 d
- GlobalFoundries · 16 open roles · median 80 d
- Lightmatter · 14 open roles · median 99 d
- Lumentum · 10 open roles · median 81 d
- Marvell Technology · 10 open roles · median 36 d
- Intel Corporation · 8 open roles · median 67 d
How we counted: 138 open Optical/Photonics IC Design (Photonics) roles from 30 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 24 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.