Systems Engineer (Silicon Photonics)

Location: Austin, Texas; full-time onsite

Salary: $185,000–$215,000 annually, plus equity opportunities

Company

hirify.global is an AI hardware startup developing silicon photonics and programmable metasurface technology for energy-efficient, high-performance AI inference.

What you will do

• Define the calibration architecture for the optical vector-matrix multiplication system, including algorithms for optical phase, amplitude, and timing correction across multiple channels.
• Design, implement, and optimize calibration algorithms using control theory, optimization, and digital signal processing.
• Specify calibration controller behavior, digital hardware structures, and software and firmware interfaces for silicon implementation.
• Lead system integration, laboratory bring-up, hardware debugging, and acceptance testing at subassembly boundaries.
• Define system-level testing, diagnostics, observability, verification plans, and performance characterization methods.
• Correlate laboratory measurements with modeled predictions, root-cause performance gaps, and mentor engineers in calibration and bring-up practices.

Requirements

• MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, or a closely related field, with emphasis on control systems, signal processing, or mixed-signal systems.
• 5+ years of experience in calibration algorithm development, system bring-up, or verification of complex electro-optic or mixed-signal systems.
• Strong knowledge of feedback control, stability analysis, sampled-data systems, optimization methods, and formal calibration problem formulation.
• Hands-on experience with oscilloscopes, spectrum or network analyzers, optical test equipment, and model-based performance correlation.
• Proficiency with Python and/or MATLAB for control loops, data acquisition, and automated characterization.
• Excellent communication skills for collaboration with analog IC, digital, photonic device, and systems engineering teams.

Nice to have

• Experience with spectral analysis, correlation, adaptive filtering, digital calibration hardware, register maps, state machines, or fixed-point arithmetic.
• Familiarity with Cadence Virtuoso and Spectre.
• Exposure to Bayesian optimization, machine learning for system calibration, or statistical design of experiments.
• Experience with optical transceiver calibration, phased-array beamforming, or ADC/DAC calibration.

Culture & Benefits

• Work on photonics and AI hardware in a collaborative startup environment.
• 100% coverage of base health plan premiums for employees and dependents, plus HSA contributions.
• Unlimited paid time off.
• 401(k) matching and stock option opportunities.
• Dental, vision, life, hospital, critical illness, and accident insurance options.