Director of Optical Engineering (Laser Systems)

Location: Denver, Colorado, United States; full-time onsite at headquarters

Salary: $190,000–$220,000 per year

Company

hirify.global develops laser-driven inertial fusion energy systems to support global decarbonization and deploy fusion power plants.

What you will do

• Build, lead, mentor, and grow the Optical Engineering team through hiring, coaching, performance management, and career development.
• Set team goals, staffing plans, engineering processes, design standards, documentation practices, and quality expectations.
• Direct the development of optical architectures for UV laser beamlines, diagnostics, adaptive optics, beam transport, and related subsystems.
• Provide technical oversight for optical design, tolerancing, alignment strategies, system modeling, performance analysis, integration, verification, validation, and commissioning.
• Lead resolution of complex optical performance issues through modeling, experimentation, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions.
• Collaborate with scientists, systems engineers, optical physicists, opto-mechanical, electrical, controls, software, supplier, and program management teams.

Requirements

• MS degree in Optical Engineering or a related technical discipline.
• 10+ years of optical engineering experience covering design, analysis, integration, and testing of complex optical systems.
• 15+ years of experience leading technical teams and managing engineering organizations.
• Expertise with optical design tools such as Zemax, CODE V, or equivalent, plus MATLAB, Python, or similar computational analysis tools.
• Experience with optical tolerancing, fabrication specifications, statistical performance analysis, precision alignment, optical metrology, interferometry, and inspection equipment.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident, or lawfully admitted refugee or asylee.

Nice to have

• PhD in Optical Engineering, Optical Science, Physics, or a related discipline.
• Experience with adaptive optics, beam pointing stabilization, physical optics modeling, and wavefront propagation analysis.
• Experience with high-energy laser systems, deep-UV optical systems, fusion, aerospace, defense, directed-energy, or other advanced scientific systems.
• Experience scaling optical engineering teams and delivering multiple projects in a matrix organization.

Culture & Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage, plus basic and supplemental life insurance.
• Short- and long-term disability coverage and paid parental leave.
• 401(k) with a company match of up to 6% and employee equity.
• Flexible paid time off, paid sick time, 13 company-paid holidays, and an annual paid company shutdown.
• Benefits are available to regular employees, with eligibility varying by benefit.