Senior EO/IR Optical Engineer (Non-Sequential Ray Tracing)

Location: Louisville, Colorado. Flexible for occasional telework, but must be local to the work location.

Projected compensation range: $149,675.71–$260,257.02.

Company

hirify.global's Orion Space Solutions designs and builds operational space payloads for national security and advanced sensing missions.

What you will do

• Build, maintain, and validate FRED non-sequential optical models for EO/IR payloads, optical benches, baffles, filters, detectors, calibration sources, and flight-like test setups.
• Perform stray-light, ghost, scatter, vignetting, detector-irradiance, and baffle analyses that influence hardware design.
• Plan and execute optical metrology and interferometric testing for optical components, benches, and assembled payloads.
• Support PSF, MTF, spectral transmission, radiometric, and stray-light testing for prototype, engineering, and flight hardware.
• Develop alignment plans, test procedures, verification matrices, supplier acceptance criteria, and optical analysis reports.
• Collaborate with optical, mechanical, thermal, detector, software, manufacturing, quality, and program teams to resolve optical performance issues.

Requirements

• BS with 12–15 years, MS with 10–13 years, or PhD with 10+ years in Optical Engineering, Physics, Applied Physics, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field.
• At least 5 years of hands-on optical engineering experience, with senior-level judgment in EO/IR, space, aerospace, defense, or precision instrumentation.
• Direct experience with FRED or equivalent non-sequential optical modeling tools.
• Hands-on optical metrology or interferometry experience, including test setup, data interpretation, and error-source diagnosis.
• Ability to interpret and specify surface figure, transmitted wavefront error, wedge, parallelism, roughness, coating performance, spectral transmission, PSF, and MTF.
• Clear technical writing and the ability to brief scientists, engineers, program managers, customers, and suppliers.

Nice to have

• Experience with space payloads, satellite instrumentation, missile-warning, remote-sensing, or national-security optical systems.
• Experience with Fabry-Perot etalons, interferometers, narrowband imaging, hyperspectral or spectral instruments, or high-stability optical benches.
• Experience with Fizeau or phase-shifting interferometers, autocollimators, spectrometers, monochromators, integrating spheres, collimators, or detector test stations.
• Familiarity with Zemax OpticStudio, CODE V, MATLAB, Python, SolidWorks/CAD import workflows, optical coating data, and ISO 10110 specifications.
• Experience with environmental testing, thermal vacuum, vibration, cleanroom optical handling, contamination control, supplier acceptance, or AS9100 development environments.

Culture & Benefits

• Work on operational payloads that fly in space.
• Small engineering teams with direct ownership of mission hardware.
• Fast-moving programs focused on EO/IR sensing, calibration, and payload performance.
• Health insurance, life insurance, paid time off, holiday pay, disability coverage, retirement and savings options, learning and development opportunities, and wellness programs, depending on position.