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Salary: USD 154,000 - 213,000 / annual
Lightmatter is a venture-backed company (Series D, $4.4B valuation) pioneering AI data center infrastructure through photonics technology. The company invented Passage™, a 3D-stacked photonics engine that connects thousands to millions of processors at light speed for advanced AI and HPC workloads.
The Product Engineering team builds software that brings up, characterizes, and qualifies Lightmatter's photonic chips on real hardware—from bench-top bring-up through production test on automated test equipment (ATE). As a Hardware Test Automation Engineer, you'll write code that drives instruments, testers, wafer probers, and lab automation to bring chips to life and prove they work. You'll act as a bridge between bench engineers and the broader test software team.
You'll work across an internal test software framework (Java/Python-based), industry-standard ATE test method and testflow development, wafer prober integration, instrument control (optical and electrical sources, meters, sensors), embedded/firmware interfaces, and data pipelines from lab equipment to structured results.
Key responsibilities include:
- Learning the hardware deeply enough to make informed software decisions
- Designing and building test software for device bring-up, characterization, and production test sequences across bench and ATE environments
- Developing and maintaining test methods, test flows, and instrument control code; code writing and review are daily activities
- Working directly with hardware and characterization engineers to translate device physics and test requirements into working, repeatable test software
- Building and maintaining data logging and results pipelines for accurate capture and downstream usability
- Debugging test hardware/software integration issues across device, fixture, instrument, and test code
- Supporting test program releases to internal test cells and external test facilities
- Communicating daily with the team on progress and blockers; spending regular time in the lab with hardware
This role offers a hybrid workplace model with competitive compensation including equity grants, comprehensive benefits (health, dental, vision, 401k matching, paid family leave, flexible time off), and professional development opportunities.
QUALIFICATIONS:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field
- 8+ years of experience in hardware test software, ATE systems, or test architecture, ideally in semiconductor or photonics
- Track record of owning test software architecture for a product line, including decisions on framework scaling across projects and teams
- Deep hands-on experience with ATE test method/test flow development and/or embedded test frameworks for hardware test automation
- Fluency with instrumentation automation (SCPI/VISA or equivalent) at a level where you can teach it to others
- History of mentoring engineers and driving cross-functional technical decisions with hardware, characterization, and manufacturing teams
- Ability to articulate end-to-end how you scoped, planned, implemented, and validated an automation project
- Comfortable working at the hardware/software boundary—reading and reasoning about embedded software (C/C++), controls, or firmware well enough to co-develop with the engineers who own it
PREFERRED:
- Master's/PhD with 3+ years of experience in hardware test software, ATE systems, or test architecture, ideally in semiconductor or photonics
- Experience integrating ATE with wafer-level hardware (probers, handlers)
- Experience with photonic test instrumentation
