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Salary: USD 130,000 - 200,000 / annual
K2 Space is building the largest and highest-power satellites ever flown, backed by over $1 billion in total funding and $1 billion in signed contracts across commercial and US government customers. The company is mass-producing high-power satellite platforms for missions from LEO to deep space, with multiple launches planned for 2027 and scaling to 100 satellites per year.
As a Photonic IC Design Engineer focused on design automation and modeling, you will own the team's photonic design flow—the software infrastructure that takes requirements through to fabrication-ready, DRC-clean designs whose measured performance matches simulation. You will build and maintain the tools, component library, and models that the entire photonics team uses for design, as well as the calibration and control algorithms for tunable circuits deployed in orbit.
Key responsibilities include:
- Own the photonic design automation flow: parametric layout generation, simulation orchestration, design-space exploration, and automated DRC/LVS sign-off across multiple integrated photonics foundry platforms (silicon, silicon nitride, III-V).
- Build and maintain fabrication-aware inverse design (topology optimization in JAX or PyTorch, with lithography models and robustness to process variation) as a core engine of the flow.
- Bring agentic and AI-guided tools into the design loop for design-space exploration, layout generation, optimization, and data analysis.
- Own device and circuit blocks on product PICs from specification through tapeout and characterization (e.g., polarization handling, low-loss routing, mode converters, vertical couplers for 3D integration, wideband devices).
- Partner with the photonics test and automation team on characterization: build design-for-test into the flow, define measurement plans and metrics, and connect the flow to the shared test data pipeline.
- Characterize devices in the lab and on automated test stations (insertion loss, extinction, bandwidth, high-speed electro-optic response); treat simulation-to-measurement error as your key metric and turn data into model calibrations, design rules, and flow updates.
- Maintain pcells and compact models for the component library with regression tests.
- Extend models into calibration and control for tunable PICs (thermal tuning, resonator locking, modulator bias).
- Develop behavioral and physical models of photonic circuits, links, lasers, and gain media; support system co-design with K2's electronics and ASIC teams.
- Make the flow usable by the whole team through documentation, reviews, and mentoring.
As a founding member of the photonics team, you will help set the tools and design practices the team grows on.
REQUIREMENTS:
- PhD or MS in electrical engineering, optics, physics, computer science, or related field, or Bachelor's degree with equivalent experience.
- Built inverse design or other computational design tools that produced fabricated, measured devices on commercial integrated photonics foundry platforms.
- Strong software engineering: Python, autodiff frameworks, version control, and maintainable shared code.
- Electromagnetic simulation (FDTD, FEM, or RCWA) and hands-on lab characterization correlated to simulation.
NICE TO HAVE:
- Machine learning or agentic AI applied to engineering design.
- Control systems, calibration, or system identification for tunable photonic circuits.
- Photonic layout and PDK tooling (gdsfactory, KLayout, Cadence).
- Laser or VCSEL design and modeling.
- 3D heterogeneous integration or co-packaged optics.
- Contributions to open-source electromagnetic or design tools (e.g., Meep).
Note: Export control compliance required—must be a U.S. Person as defined by ITAR or eligible for federally issued export control license.
