Principal Systems Engineer, Signal-Path Performance & Modeling

Job Title

Principal Systems Engineer, Signal-Path Performance & Modeling

Role Summary

Lead the end-to-end quantitative performance modeling of an optical vector-matrix multiplication (OVMM) engine, owning link and power budgets, behavioral models, and impairment analyses across optical, analog, and digital domains.

Work with photonic, analog, digital, and software teams to translate system-level simulations into defensible allocations and hardware/software requirements for a first-of-its-kind optical computing platform.

Experience Level

Senior - requires 7+ years of relevant professional experience in communication systems architecture, link-budget/signal-chain modeling, or performance modeling of optical or high-speed electrical communication systems.

Responsibilities

The role centers on modeling, analysis, requirements allocation, and correlation of models to measurement. Primary responsibilities include:

• Define and own the signal-path architecture spanning DSP, DAC/ADC, analog conditioning, and optical interfaces.
• Build and maintain end-to-end optical and electrical link and power budgets, keeping them synchronized with design and measurements.
• Develop and maintain behavioral TX–channel–RX models that capture optical, analog, quantization, and algorithmic effects.
• Allocate accuracy targets (NMSE/SNR/SNDR) across optics, analog, quantization, and algorithms and update allocations as designs evolve.
• Characterize and quantify impairments: noise, distortion, jitter, quantization, crosstalk, mismatch, and nonlinearity.
• Run Monte Carlo, corner, and time-domain simulations to quantify margin and manufacturing robustness.
• Correlate model predictions with lab and silicon measurements and isolate discrepancies to refine models and architecture.
• Provide quantitative performance data for roadmaps, customer discussions, and calibration/accuracy budgets; mentor engineers in modeling and trade-study methodology.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience:

• 7+ years professional experience in system-level performance modeling or communication/link-budget analysis (see Experience Level).
• Deep knowledge of communication theory and signal processing: modulation, equalization, synchronization, estimation, quantization effects, and coding-gain concepts.
• Expert proficiency in Python (NumPy/SciPy) and/or MATLAB/Simulink for behavioral modeling, Monte Carlo simulation, and time-domain analysis.
• Practical experience with optical or high-speed electrical link budgets and the ability to allocate impairments across components.
• Proven ability to negotiate technical requirements and defend architectural decisions to cross-functional teams and technical leadership.
• Experience correlating models to lab/silicon measurements and refining models based on data.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience with coherent or direct-detection optics, high-speed SerDes, or networking standards (Ethernet, PCIe, OIF-CEI).
• System-level modeling of ADC/DAC behavior, sampling, quantization, and synchronization.
• Familiarity with Cadence Virtuoso/Spectre for validating behavioral models, hands-on lab characterization, or silicon bring-up experience.
• Familiarity with photonic integrated circuits, silicon photonics, or optical transceiver systems.

Education Requirements

MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, or a closely related field with emphasis on communication theory, signal processing, or mixed-signal systems. The posting notes that time spent pursuing a PhD beyond the MS counts toward the required years of experience.

About the Company

Company: Neurophos

Headquarters: Sunnyvale, California, United States

Startup developing silicon-photonic AI accelerator chips that use programmable metasurfaces and dense optical cells to perform matrix multiplications at the speed of light, targeting large-scale AI inference with much higher energy efficiency and performance than traditional electronic approaches.