Senior Silicon Photonics Engineer

Job Title

Senior Silicon Photonics Engineer

Role Summary

Design high-speed silicon photonic integrated circuits (PICs) from concept through tapeout and silicon validation for production-bound systems. Work within an R&D/engineering team that co-designs photonics, electronics, and packaging for high-bandwidth optical transceivers.

Experience Level

Suitable for PhD graduates and early-career engineers (~0–5 years experience). Role expects hands-on PIC design and tapeout experience rather than purely simulation work.

Responsibilities

Deliver PIC designs, support tapeout and silicon bring-up, and collaborate across disciplines to meet system targets.

• Design and optimize silicon photonic devices and circuits: high-speed modulators, photodetectors/receivers, and passive components (couplers, filters, routing).
• Perform multi-domain simulations (electromagnetic, circuit, thermal) to meet bandwidth, loss, and efficiency targets (e.g., 200G/lane+).
• Implement PIC layouts (GDS) using foundry PDKs and support tapeout flows and DRC/LVS checks.
• Co-design with electronics and packaging teams to address RF effects, parasitics, signal integrity, and thermal constraints for CPO/NPO systems.
• Support silicon bring-up and characterization, correlate measurements with simulation, and drive iterative design improvements.
• Contribute to design libraries, device modeling, and methodology development.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and relevant hands-on experience. Nice-to-have items listed separately.

• Experience designing and simulating silicon photonic devices or PICs (device-level and circuit-level).
• Strong understanding of guided-wave optics and photonic device physics.
• Familiarity with simulation tools such as Lumerical, COMSOL, or equivalents.
• Exposure to PIC layout and tapeout flows, including working with foundry PDKs and performing DRC/LVS.
• Basic systems awareness of optical communication links and RF effects impacting transceivers.

Nice to have:

• Experience with very high-speed devices (>100 GHz) or related measurement techniques.
• Exposure to CPO/NPO architectures or optical transceiver system integration.
• Familiarity with SiPh + III-V integration approaches.
• Experience with inverse design / adjoint methods (e.g., Meep).

Education Requirements

PhD in Electrical Engineering, Physics, or a related technical field with emphasis on silicon photonics or closely related areas. The role explicitly targets PhD graduates and early-career engineers.

About the Company

Company: Lumilens

Headquarters: San Jose, CA, USA

Lumilens develops integrated photonics and optical interconnect solutions for high-speed data communication and chip-to-chip interfaces, focusing on optical front-end hardware and co-packaged optics for advanced semiconductor systems.