Senior/Staff Electro-Optic Hardware Design Engineer

Job Title

Senior/Staff Electro-Optic Hardware Design Engineer

Role Summary

Design, integrate, and qualify electro-optic hardware modules for advanced photonic systems, converting system requirements into production-ready rack-mountable or blade-format products. The role partners with system architects, photonics, electronics, mechanical, test, operations, and external vendors and leads internal execution and supplier development.

Experience Level

Senior-level (senior or staff). Years of experience not explicitly specified.

Responsibilities

Lead hands-on engineering activities from detailed design through verification, qualification, and transfer to manufacturing.

• Own detailed module designs incorporating amplifiers, attenuators, polarization controllers, switches, splitters, photodiodes, power monitors, control electronics, and fiber infrastructure.
• Translate system requirements into specs, interface definitions, optical/electrical budgets, schematics, BOMs, mechanical layouts, and assembly documentation.
• Lead design trade studies on performance, noise, stability, dynamic range, control bandwidth, thermal behavior, reliability, manufacturability, cost, and schedule.
• Plan and execute bring-up, characterization, margin testing, environmental and fault-injection testing; automate measurements and data reduction where practical.
• Author verification/acceptance criteria, test plans, procedures, and formal test reports traceable to requirements.
• Lead EVT and DVT activities, perform failure analysis, drive corrective actions, and ensure closure of test anomalies and design risks.
• Manage configuration control: drawings, schematics, BOMs, firmware interfaces, calibration data, and released test documentation.
• Define and drive supplier engagement: SOWs, requirements flow-down, prototype acceptance, supplier qualification, and yield/quality resolution.
• Collaborate with manufacturing to implement DFM/DFT, calibration, alignment, serviceability, and production acceptance strategies.
• Provide concise, decision-oriented status, risk, and recovery communications to stakeholders and executives.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience for successful performance. Preferred items listed separately.

• Proven ownership of electro-optic or opto-mechanical hardware design through prototype, verification, qualification, and manufacturing release.
• Hands-on experience with fiber-optic components and subsystems: amplifiers, attenuators, polarization control, power monitoring, photodetection, and fiber management.
• Experience integrating optical, analog and digital electronics, thermal management, mechanical packaging, connectors, power distribution, communications, and safety features in rack-mounted or blade systems.
• Ability to develop requirements, interface-control docs, optical/electrical budgets, verification matrices, test plans, procedures, and acceptance criteria.
• Strong experimental judgment: test design, instrumentation, measurement uncertainty, and data analysis to separate component limits from integration/test artifacts.
• Experience leading EVT/DVT, structured debugging, root-cause analysis, and corrective-action closure.
• Proven ability to direct vendors and contract manufacturers while maintaining technical ownership, schedule discipline, document quality, and configuration control.
• Excellent written and verbal communication and cross-discipline collaboration skills; able to distill technical work into concise executive updates.

Nice to have:

• Experience with high-power or low-noise optical amplification, photonic calibration, metrology, quantum photonics, or precision instrumentation.
• Familiarity with laser/electrical safety, EMI/EMC, environmental qualification, reliability methods, and product-compliance practices.
• Experience automating lab or production test systems (Python, LabVIEW, MATLAB, or similar).
• Working knowledge of statistical tolerance analysis, measurement-system analysis, DOE, reliability growth, and supplier quality methods.
• Experience transferring low-volume, high-complexity hardware into repeatable production and supporting sustaining engineering or field failure analysis.

Education Requirements

B.S. or higher in electrical engineering, optical engineering, physics, mechanical engineering, or a related field; role expects substantial relevant industry experience supporting the degree requirement.

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.