Staff Photonics Design and Layout Engineer (Silicon Photonics)

Location: Boston, MA or Mountain View, CA; flexible hybrid workplace model

Salary: $175,000–$210,000 USD per year, plus equity and additional rewards.

Company

hirify.global develops photonic computing and interconnect infrastructure for AI and high-performance computing data centers.

What you will do

• Design and lay out block- and system-level photonic circuits from clean-sheet concepts through tapeout and bring-up.
• Translate product requirements into photonics solutions in collaboration with customer-facing teams.
• Integrate on-chip photonics with analog, digital, and packaging subsystems.
• Perform layout-driven photonic simulation and verification, identifying bottlenecks and troubleshooting performance issues.
• Develop photonic layout, verification, and integration flows for multiple processes and foundries.
• Contribute to proprietary PDKs, new photonic chip architectures, publications, and optics/photonics conferences.

Requirements

• MS with 10 years or PhD with 3 years of industry experience in electrical engineering, physics, photonics, or a related discipline.
• Strong understanding of silicon photonics fundamentals, devices, performance metrics, and design trade-offs.
• Proficiency with Python and script-based photonic circuit design and layout using GDSFactory or a similar tool.
• Experience with multiple photonic tapeouts and the ability to work on both highly constrained and loosely defined problems.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills for multidisciplinary engineering work.
• Capacity to comply with federally mandated U.S. export control requirements.

Nice to have

• Experience with product-grade photonic tapeouts, foundry processes, and custom PDKs.
• Experience with photonic or analog circuit design in Cadence Virtuoso.
• Strong project execution skills and the ability to manage multiple priorities and milestones.

Culture & Benefits

• Collaborative, multidisciplinary environment focused on building innovative integrated photonic solutions.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Retirement savings matching, life insurance, and disability coverage.
• Vacation, sick leave, public holidays, and paid family leave.
• Training and development, commuter benefits, and equity grants for full-time employees.