Senior Laser & SOA Characterization Engineer (Photonics)

Location: Mountain View, California, United States; flexible hybrid workplace model.

Salary: $210,000–$267,000 USD annually, plus equity and other rewards.

Company

hirify.global develops photonic computing and data-center infrastructure for high-bandwidth, energy-efficient AI and HPC workloads.

What you will do

• Lead hands-on characterization, bring-up, validation, and root-cause analysis of semiconductor lasers, tunable lasers, DFB/DBR/ECL lasers, laser diodes, and SOAs.
• Measure and analyze optical and electro-optical metrics including power, wavelength, spectrum, SMSR, RIN, linewidth, gain, saturation, ASE, noise figure, tuning, and thermal stability.
• Develop LIV, L-I-V-T, wavelength-tuning, power-stability, noise, linewidth, and long-term-drift measurement methodologies.
• Build and maintain automated optical and RF test setups and software workflows for instrument control, calibration, data collection, analysis, visualization, and reporting.
• Debug optical, electrical, RF, and thermal measurement issues and define calibration, data-quality, and documentation standards.
• Translate characterization results into recommendations for laser design, photonics integration, packaging, systems, reliability, and production-readiness teams while mentoring junior engineers.

Requirements

• Master’s or PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Applied Physics, Photonics, Optics, or a related technical field.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience in semiconductor laser, SOA, photonics, or optical-device characterization.
• Strong understanding of semiconductor laser physics, optical gain, carrier dynamics, rate equations, thermal effects, feedback sensitivity, linewidth, RIN, and optical noise.
• Deep hands-on experience with optical and electro-optical laboratory measurements and optical/RF instrumentation.
• Strong Python programming experience for instrument automation, data analysis, plotting, statistical analysis, and automated reporting.
• Capacity to comply with federally mandated U.S. export-control requirements.

Nice to have

• PhD and prior experience with DFB, DBR, tunable, ECL, or laser-diode characterization for integrated photonics or optical communications.
• Experience with advanced laser-noise measurements, including phase noise, frequency noise, optical feedback, and relaxation oscillation analysis.
• Experience with laser and SOA modeling, III-V materials, heterogeneous integration, packaging, fiber coupling, optical isolators, and thermal control.
• Experience developing automated test platforms, dashboards, or reports and supporting reliability, qualification, or production validation.

Culture & Benefits

• Flexible hybrid workplace model.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Retirement savings matching program.
• Vacation, sick leave, public holidays, and paid family leave.
• Life insurance, short- and long-term disability coverage, commuter benefits, training and development, and equity grants for full-time employees.