Staff / Sr Staff Photonics Design Engineer, Interfaces & Components
$160,000 - $250,000 USD yearly
Design optical interfaces and passive components on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) using Tidy3D and Lumerical.
About the role
HyperLight is seeking a Staff or Senior Staff Photonics Design Engineer to lead the design of device components on the TFLN Chiplet™ platform, with a focus on optical interfaces. The role covers passive and active devices, simulation, layout, and characterization across thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonic integrated circuits.
What you'll do
- Lead the design of device components, including fiber and free-space optical interfaces such as grating couplers and edge couplers, along with splitters, optical taps, crossings, and thermo-optic phase shifters.
- Own component design flows end to end, including defining requirements with product teams and customers, architecture selection, simulation, layout, tapeout, measurement, and production handoff.
- Apply optimization-driven and statistical design methods to ensure components remain robust against fabrication variations at production volumes.
- Simulate component designs using tools such as Tidy3D, Lumerical, COMSOL, and HFSS, as well as internal Python tools.
- Develop and perform measurement techniques to characterize component performance, analyzing experimental and simulation data for robustness.
- Collaborate with process engineering to refine fabrication processes and serve as a technical expert to mentor team members and guide the technical roadmap.
What you'll need
- Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Optics, or a related field with 3+ years of relevant industry experience, or 9+ years of relevant industry experience with a B.S. or M.S. (exceptional candidates finishing a Ph.D. with directly relevant design and tapeout experience will also be considered).
- Prior ownership of photonic component design flows in foundry processes, with multiple designs completed through tapeout and characterization.
- Strong background in advanced design techniques including optimization-driven design, statistical modeling, and design of experiments.
- Strong expertise in simulation of PIC components using tools such as Tidy3D, Lumerical, COMSOL, or Synopsys OptoDesigner.
- Hands-on experience characterizing photonic integrated circuits using instruments including swept lasers, fiber alignment stages, VNAs, BERTs, and oscilloscopes.
- Experience writing software using scripting languages such as Python or Julia.
Nice to have
- Design experience with grating couplers, grating emitters, or other fiber and free-space optical interfaces, including apodized, chirped, or dual-polarization designs.
- Familiarity with fabrication processes such as lithography, etch, and deposition, and their impact on device performance.
- Experience with photonic layout tools such as Cadence Virtuoso or gdsfactory.
- Familiarity with git-based version control.
- Experience with active photonic devices such as thermo-optic phase shifters.
- Deep design expertise on high-index-contrast platforms such as silicon-on-insulator (SOI) or thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN).
Skills: grating couplers, TFLN, Lumerical, Tidy3D, PIC design
More semiconductor jobs: Photonics jobs
First seen in our index 10 days ago, well below the 66-day median for Optical/Photonics IC Design roles.
Optical/Photonics IC Design · Photonics
|
Open roles in category
160
|
Median days since first seen
66 d
|
Category median salary (all employers)
$191k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | HyperLight | All employers we track in this specialty (160 roles · 33 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 1 | 160 |
| Median days since first seen | 10 d | 66 d (+56 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | n/a | $191k |
Skills observed across this category: grating couplers, TFLN, Lumerical, Tidy3D, PIC design
Who's hiring in this category
- Coherent Corp · 17 open roles · median 115 d
- Lightmatter · 14 open roles · median 93 d
- GlobalFoundries · 12 open roles · median 86 d
- Ayar Labs · 11 open roles · median 7 d
- Marvell Technology · 10 open roles · median 43 d
- Lumentum · 9 open roles · median 101 d
How we counted: 160 open Optical/Photonics IC Design (Photonics) roles from 33 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 14 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.