Photonics Test Engineer

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute test and characterization plans for photonic integrated circuits and individual photonic devices
• Perform optical and electrical measurements of fabricated PICs and components
• Characterize devices including waveguides, grating couplers, modulators, photodetectors, resonators, switches, and other active/passive photonic components
• Build and improve automated test setups for wafer-level and packaged-device characterization
• Develop Python-based measurement, data acquisition, analysis, and visualization workflows
• Perform fiber-to-chip coupling, optical alignment, probing, and other hands-on photonic measurements
• Analyze device performance including optical loss, coupling efficiency, bandwidth, extinction ratio, responsivity, insertion loss, and related parameters
• Work closely with PIC designers to compare measured performance against simulations and design targets
• Support debugging, root-cause analysis, and design iterations based on experimental results
• Collaborate with fabrication, packaging, electrical, and systems teams to improve device and test performance
• Help establish repeatable characterization methodologies and test infrastructure as the technology moves toward higher-volume experimentation and production

Qualifications

• Experience testing and characterizing photonic integrated circuits or integrated optical devices
• Strong understanding of silicon photonics, silicon nitride photonics, or related integrated photonics platforms
• Hands-on experience with optical test equipment such as tunable lasers, optical power meters, OSA, VNAs, photodetectors, and optical/electrical probes
• Experience with fiber-to-chip coupling, optical alignment, wafer probing, or packaged photonic devices
• Strong Python skills for test automation, data acquisition, analysis, and visualization
• Experience interpreting experimental data and connecting measured device behavior to underlying photonic designs and physics
• Familiarity with PIC fabrication, layouts, tapeouts, PDKs, or device simulation is highly desirable
• Ability to work hands-on in a laboratory environment and troubleshoot complex optical/electrical test setups

Nice to Have

• Experience with thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) or lithium-niobate photonics
• Experience with silicon nitride (SiN) PICs
• Experience with wafer-level automated testing or high-throughput photonic characterization
• Experience characterizing high-speed electro-optic devices
• Experience with Lumerical, COMSOL, or other photonic simulation tools
• Experience designing PIC test structures or contributing to PIC layouts
• Experience taking devices from design and fabrication through characterization and iteration