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Salary: USD 150,000 - 200,000 / annual
Lightmatter is revolutionizing AI data center infrastructure through photonics technology. The company invented Passage™, a 3D-stacked photonics engine that connects thousands to millions of processors at the speed of light for extreme-scale data centers. Recently raised $400M in Series D at a $4.4B valuation.
The Laser System Architecture & Engineering (LSAE) team seeks a Senior Photonics Circuit Design Engineer to design and model photonic and analog sub-circuits for Lightmatter's Guide™ laser products and Passage™ optical links. You will own the bridge between device physics and sub-circuit behavior, building high-fidelity behavioral models that capture fabrication variability, dispersion, and thermal effects. Your models will be used by systems architects for end-to-end product simulations, so accuracy and silicon correlation are critical.
Key responsibilities include:
- Construct and maintain high-fidelity compact and behavioral models for silicon photonic elements (waveguides, couplers, MZIs, micro-rings, multiplexers, phase control, thermal tuners, modulators, detectors, integrated III-V/SOA components)
- Incorporate process variations, dispersion metrics, thermal-optical tuning, and non-linear properties into component modeling
- Partner with device engineers to extract and calibrate parameters using optical solvers (FDTD, EME), foundry PDKs, and physical silicon data
- Architect comprehensive sub-circuit simulations for Guide laser modules and Passage interconnect blocks
- Refine topologies against KPIs (insertion loss, extinction ratio, signal isolation, tuning efficiency, bandwidth, noise)
- Execute corner, statistical Monte Carlo, and margin analyses for yield and tolerance evaluation
- Validate sub-circuit representations against empirical silicon measurements across production cycles
The role offers a hybrid workplace model with flexible arrangements.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, Photonics, or related discipline plus 2+ years industry experience (OR M.S. with 5+ years). Staff-level targeting Ph.D. with 6+ years or M.S. with 10+ years.
- Deep background in silicon photonic physics and analog circuit fundamentals with proven capability in generating behavioral component models for circuit-level co-simulation
- Practical expertise with photonic modeling platforms (Lumerical, RSoft, Tidy3D) and analog IC suites (Cadence Virtuoso/Spectre)
- Strong Python software skills for modeling, data extraction, and maintainability of shared engineering codebases
- Analytical mindset for addressing complex, unstructured technical issues through data-driven decisions
- Methodical engineering approach with emphasis on structured review processes and simulation automation
- Clear written and verbal technical presentation capabilities
PREFERRED:
- Experience with microring modulators/filters, DWDM MUX/DEMUX, thermal tuning
- Laser and III-V photonics (DFB, external-cavity/comb sources, SOAs, wavelength lockers, heterogeneous integration)
- Analog front-end experience (TIAs, modulator drivers, heater drivers, DACs)
- Foundry silicon photonics PDK experience (GlobalFoundries, TSMC, Tower, AIM, imec)
- Lab experience correlating models to measurement (OSA, tunable lasers, OVA/LCA, VNA, wafer-level testing)
- Publications or patents in photonic circuit design or modeling
