Optical Firmware Engineer, Principal (Silicon Photonics)

Location: San Jose, California, United States

Base salary: $185,000–$240,000 USD per year

Company

hirify.global provides rack-scale AI infrastructure through connectivity solutions based on CXL, Ethernet, NVLink, PCIe, and UALink technologies, supported by its COSMOS software suite.

What you will do

• Design, develop, and debug real-time embedded firmware for optical transceivers and PIC/EIC engines using C/C++.
• Implement laser control, automatic power control, temperature compensation, wavelength locking, and link training algorithms.
• Integrate firmware with DSPs, drivers, ADCs/DACs, and higher-level software through I2C, SPI, and custom interfaces.
• Develop diagnostic, calibration, and telemetry features for manufacturing tests, field monitoring, and reliability.
• Optimize 400G/800G/1.6T+ optical links for low latency, power efficiency, and reliability.
• Collaborate with optical, electrical, DSP, and system validation teams on silicon photonics bring-up, debugging, characterization, and qualification.

Requirements

• BS, MS, or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Physics, or a related field, plus 12+ years of industry experience.
• Strong embedded firmware experience with bare-metal or RTOS systems for optical or high-speed communication applications.
• Knowledge of lasers, modulators, photodiodes, TIAs, and thermal tuning.
• Proficiency in C/C++, Python scripting, JTAG, oscilloscopes, and optical test equipment.
• Experience with firmware version control, standards compliance, and interfaces such as I2C and SPI.

Nice to have

• Experience with high-speed SerDes, signal integrity, or optical link optimization.
• Familiarity with silicon photonics and pluggable optics such as QSFP and OSFP.

Culture & Benefits

• Work with cross-functional teams spanning optical, electrical, DSP, and system validation disciplines.
• Contribute to high-speed AI infrastructure and silicon photonics systems.
• hirify.global encourages applications from people with diverse backgrounds and experiences.