Electro-Optic Link Hardware Engineer

Job Title

Electro-Optic Link Hardware Engineer

Role Summary

Hands-on photonics engineer responsible for verification and characterization of high-speed electro-optic links. Work primarily at the lab bench with the electro-optics (EOE) team to execute measurements, debug links, build automation, and support silicon bring-up across analog, package, PCB, and SerDes teams.

Work contributes to data-center photonics technology for AI and HPC workloads.

Experience Level

Mid-level. Requires several years of hands-on experience characterizing and debugging high-speed serial links (roughly 3+ years of relevant lab/industry experience expected).

Responsibilities

Execute hands-on lab verification, characterization, and debug of high-speed electrical and optical links; develop repeatable measurement and analysis workflows.

• Run lab characterization and debug of high-speed electrical/optical hardware.
• Measure and analyze eye diagrams, BER, jitter, equalization, and channel impairments across PVT (process, voltage, temperature).
• Build and correlate electrical, optical, and electro-optic channel models against bench measurements.
• Execute link budget validation and identify gaps between models and silicon.
• Support silicon bring-up and root-cause debug with analog, package, PCB, and SerDes teams.
• Develop automation for instrument control, data pipelines, and analysis to speed characterization.
• Document measurement setups, methods, and results for reproducibility.

Requirements

Clear separation of must-have skills and nice-to-have skills for the role.

• Must-have: Hands-on experience characterizing and debugging high-speed serial links (56G/112G+); working knowledge of SerDes equalization (CTLE/FFE/DFE) and signal-integrity fundamentals (S-parameters, insertion/return loss, crosstalk).
• Must-have: Strong bench skills with VNA, real-time and sampling oscilloscopes, BERTs, and TDRs; comfortable building measurement setups from scratch and validating measurement integrity.
• Must-have: Solid Python or MATLAB skills for instrument automation and data analysis; experience building automation and scripts for characterization workflows.
• Must-have: Proven track record of closing out debug investigations at the bench and supporting cross-functional bring-up/debug efforts.
• Must-have: Ability to build and correlate electrical/optical/EO channel models and execute link budget validation.
• Must-have: Ability to comply with U.S. export control laws.
• Nice-to-have: Silicon photonics or EO link experience (modulators, photodetectors, optical test), ADS/HFSS or similar simulation tool experience, COM/IBIS-AMI familiarity, and package/PCB channel measurement or de-embedding experience.

Education Requirements

PhD in Electrical Engineering, Photonics, or Physics; or a Master’s degree plus 3+ years of relevant experience. Fields: EE, Photonics, Physics, or closely related technical disciplines. Equivalent practical experience is acceptable as described.

About the Company

Company: Lightmatter

Headquarters: Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Lightmatter develops photonic AI data-center infrastructure and optical chips for extreme-scale AI and HPC. The company invented the Passage 3D‑stacked photonics engine to provide high-bandwidth, low-latency interconnects across large-scale processors and raised $400M in Series D financing at a reported $4.4B valuation.