Electro-Optic Systems Architect
LightmatterJob Title
Electro-Optic Systems Architect
Role Summary
Owner of the digital architecture for Lightmatter's Passage product, responsible for ensuring electrical‑optical‑electrical links meet performance and customer requirements. The role partners with chip design, RTL/DV, firmware, test/validation, and product teams to define, model, and validate system-level digital solutions for photonic-enabled systems.
Experience Level
Senior-level - requires extensive experience; posting specifies 12+ years of relevant experience.
Responsibilities
The role spans architecture, specification, verification enablement, and validation across digital, AMS, and photonic domains.
- Own the digital architecture from concept through high-volume production; coordinate planning and execution with program management.
- Architect and specify system-level digital designs that integrate AMS and photonic circuits (stabilization circuitry, line-rate DSP, FEC, CRC, tuning and analog front-end adaptation).
- Collaborate with RTL and DV teams to enable block-level implementation and verification.
- Work with test and validation engineers to compare hardware measurements to simulation and refine models.
- Enable firmware development for hardware bring-up and validation procedures.
- Author and review architectural specifications; support product and applications teams on datasheets and reference designs.
- Identify risks and opportunities in proposed architectures and define mitigation strategies.
Requirements
Must-have technical skills and behaviors required to perform the role.
- Deep experience with power-efficient digital design flows for high-speed AMS electronics, preferably on photonic communication channels.
- Deep knowledge of digital circuit design in high-speed analog/photonic links, including device bring-up, control, and digital signal processing.
- Proven problem-solving skills for complex, ill-defined engineering problems.
- Strong customer communication skills and a track record of timely, constructive interactions.
- Experience working with cross-disciplinary teams (chip design, firmware, test, software) to deliver system products.
Nice-to-have:
- Understanding of SerDes PCS layer, equalization techniques, and forward error-correction schemes.
Education Requirements
Master's degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering (the posting specifies a Master’s degree). The posting also specifies 12+ years of relevant professional experience.
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.
