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Mechasys is seeking a hands-on Optical Systems Engineer to own the distance measurement subsystem at the heart of an XR Projector that projects digital construction plans at 1:1 scale directly onto job sites with millimetre precision. The company merges optics, software, and embedded systems to help builders work faster and smarter.
You will design the next-generation optical ranging system, from link budget and bench prototype through to a manufacturable, field-calibrated product. You will be the technical owner of ranging performance—range, precision, measurement rate—and how all three hold up in real site conditions. You will also contribute to improving the laser projection system.
Key Responsibilities:
Ranging System Design: Own the ranging architecture including modulation scheme, wavelength, receiver topology, and optical layout. Build and defend optical link budgets and set physically achievable specifications. Design the receive path including collection optics, filtering, and detector selection (APD, SiPM, PIN), and specify the analog front end with the electronics team. Own laser safety for the ranging path under IEC 60825-1 and ANSI Z136.1, including interlock design.
Prototyping and Measurement: Stand up optical benches and run experiments with documented protocols and acceptance criteria. Characterize error terms that determine real accuracy: crosstalk, range walk, thermal drift, speckle. Build measurement tooling and turn data into usable noise models.
Integration and Productization: Work with firmware engineers on signal processing, phase extraction, and host interface. Contribute to athermal mounting, boresight stability, and alignment tolerances. Define per-unit factory calibration and support manufacturing, field diagnostics, and compliance (IEC, CE, FCC).
Requirements:
- 5+ years developing LiDAR, laser rangefinding, optical time-of-flight systems, or closely related electro-optical instruments
- Degree in physics, electrical engineering, optical engineering, or engineering physics, or equivalent depth earned in industry
- Ability to build an optical link budget from first principles and explain in photons why a specification is or is not reachable
- Practical experience with photodetectors (APD, SiPM, PIN), their analog front ends, and both phase-shift and pulsed time-of-flight ranging
- Comfortable on an optical bench with lab instrumentation; proficiency writing Python to extract answers from data
- Experience designing to laser safety classification (not just theory), with documentation rigor enabling others to repeat the work
Nice to Have:
- Galvanometer or MEMS beam scanning and associated calibration
- FPGA-based signal processing (Zynq, Vivado, HDL) or close collaboration with FPGA teams
- Surveying, metrology, total stations, or domains where millimetres are the fundamental unit of measurement
- Optical design tools (Zemax, OpticStudio, Code V), design for manufacturability, volume production experience
- Bilingual French and English
