SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Salary: USD 140,000 - 170,000 / annual
Lightmatter is a venture-backed photonics company that has invented the world's first 3D-stacked photonics engine (Passage™) for connecting thousands to millions of processors at the speed of light in extreme-scale AI and HPC data centers. The company raised $400M in Series D at a $4.4B valuation and is accelerating development across all departments.
You will be a hands-on photonics engineer responsible for verification and characterization of high-speed electro-optic links. Most of your time will be spent at the bench with the electro-optic engineering (EOE) team, executing measurements, debugging links, and building automation to make characterization faster and repeatable.
Key responsibilities include:
- Run hands-on lab characterization and debug of high-speed electrical/optical hardware
- Characterize eye diagrams, BER, jitter, equalization, and channel impairments across process/voltage/temperature
- Build and correlate electrical/optical/EO channel models against bench measurements
- Execute link budget validation measurements and flag gaps between model and silicon
- Support silicon bring-up and root-cause debug alongside analog, package, PCB, and SerDes teams
- Build automation and scripts (instrument control, data pipelines, analysis) to accelerate characterization workflows
- Document measurement setups, methods, and results for reproducibility
This is a senior individual contributor role requiring deep expertise in high-speed link characterization and a track record of closing complex debug investigations at the bench.
Qualifications:
- PhD in EE, Photonics, or Physics; OR MS degree plus 3+ years of relevant hands-on experience
- Hands-on experience characterizing and debugging high-speed serial links (56G/112G and above)
- Working knowledge of SerDes equalization (CTLE/FFE/DFE) and signal integrity fundamentals (S-parameters, insertion/return loss, crosstalk)
- Strong bench skills with VNA, real-time and sampling scopes, BERTs, and TDRs
- Ability to build measurement setups from scratch and recognize when measurements are unreliable
- Solid Python or MATLAB proficiency for instrument automation and data analysis
- Demonstrated track record of closing out debug investigations at the bench
Preferred qualifications:
- Silicon photonics or electro-optic link exposure (modulators, photodetectors, optical test)
- Experience with ADS, HFSS, or similar simulation tools
- Familiarity with COM/IBIS-AMI
- Package/PCB channel measurement or de-embedding experience
Note: Candidates must have capacity to comply with U.S. export control laws.
