Intern, Optical Packaging and Characterization Engineer

Job Title

Intern, Optical Packaging and Characterization Engineer

Role Summary

This internship supports optical packaging and characterization tasks: setting up optical microscopy, acquiring measurement images and metadata, processing image data, and documenting procedures and results under engineer supervision.

Work contributes to reproducible optical measurement and surface metrology for silicon-photonics packaging efforts.

Experience Level

Entry-level internship. Intended for current students or recent graduates (undergraduate level and above).

Responsibilities

Typical duties performed under supervision.

• Set up optical microscopy, capture consistent measurement images and record associated metadata.
• Support image-processing workflows (contrast, alignment, feature extraction) and convert results into tables or simple plots.
• Document methods and contribute to SOPs and work instructions for optical measurement.
• Organize experimental data, maintain lab notes, and assist with design-of-experiments summaries.
• Participate in efforts to improve documentation, data organization, and measurement repeatability.

Requirements

Key qualifications for successful candidates. Degrees and fields are listed separately below.

• Must-have: Practical exposure or coursework in optical microscopy (imaging modes, resolution, illumination, basic alignment).
• Must-have: Comfortable using image analysis software or Python for measurement reporting and basic scripting/data handling.
• Must-have: Strong attention to detail, clear written communication, and ability to follow instructions and work collaboratively in a lab.
• Nice-to-have: Familiarity with JMP or similar statistical/visualization tools for data exploration and basic DOE analysis.
• Nice-to-have: Image-processing experience, familiarity with mechanical bow/wafer or substrate warpage concepts, or exposure to optical alignment and beam-matching metrics.

Education Requirements

Currently pursuing or recently completed a bachelor’s degree in Optics, Optical Engineering, Photonics, Physics, or a closely related field. The posting’s compensation table also references master’s and PhD levels (for pay scaling), but the role is presented as an internship for undergraduate (and recent graduate) students. Equivalent-experience language is not specified.

About the Company

Company: PsiQuantum

Headquarters: Palo Alto, CA, United States

PsiQuantum develops silicon-photonic quantum computers aimed at building million-qubit, fault-tolerant systems. Founded in 2016, the company combines semiconductor manufacturing processes, photonic hardware, and quantum software to scale quantum systems for commercial and government applications.