Lightmatter is leading the revolution in AI data center infrastructure, enabling the next giant leaps in human progress. The company invented the world’s first 3D-stacked photonics engine, Passage™, capable of connecting thousands to millions of processors at the speed of light in extreme-scale data centers for the most advanced AI and HPC workloads.
Lightmatter raised $400 million in its Series D round, reaching a valuation of $4.4 billion. We will continue to accelerate the development of data center photonics and grow every department at Lightmatter!
If you're passionate about tackling complex challenges, making an impact, and being an expert in your craft, join our team of brilliant scientists, engineers, and accomplished industry leaders.
Lightmatter is (re)inventing the future of computing with light!
About this Role
We are hiring a Photonics Architect. The selected candidate will partner with external facing teams at Lightmatter and internal engineering teams to deliver groundbreaking products to the market. In this role, you will design and develop innovative photonics architecture solutions to deliver high-volume products for our customers. You will engage with our cross-disciplinary engineering teams to model and analyze solutions. You may also test and measure prototypes to validate the models. This role requires a deep understanding of silicon photonics process technologies, state-of-the-art photonics designs, high-speed (40+ GHz) electro-optic interfaces, lasers, and 3D integration. The role also requires creativity, analytical skills, and clear communication skills. You may represent the company externally at technical conferences as an example of our technical leadership.
Join a tight-knit team where each individual’s contributions directly influence the success of the company and product. You'll have the opportunity to build a new kind of computer from the ground up and to solve groundbreaking challenges along the way. Work with people who love to build and who thrive in technically diverse environments where great ideas are prioritized.
Responsibilities:
- Creative problem-solving and contributing to high-performance photonic architecture solutions for high-volume products.
- Develop specifications for passive photonic components, such as wavelength filters and polarization management components
- Develop, simulate, and validate control and initialization algorithms for photonic circuits.
- Multiphysics considerations and simulations of photonic circuits.
- Validate the models by designing experiments, conducting proof-of-concept experiments, and analyzing data.
- Actively collaborate across disciplines—with electronics, photonics, and mechanical engineers —to design systems, algorithms, circuits, and devices that meet performance, power, and production requirements.
- Document and present your contributions.
This is not a complete listing of the responsibilities. It’s a representation of the things you will be doing.
Qualifications:
- Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics or similar discipline with at least 5 years of relevant experience, or Master’s degree with at least 6 years of relevant experience.
- Minimum 5 years of experience in design and testing of silicon photonic circuits.
- Minimum 3 years of experience in control of photonic circuits.
- Deep understanding of photonics, optical nonlinearities, semiconductors, thermal physics, transmission lines.
- Experience in developing controllers and optimization algorithms for analog hardware
- Strong proficiency in photonic circuit simulations, using industry-standard tools such as VPI Systems, Lumerical Interconnect, or equivalent.
- Strong proficiency in coding simulations in Python or Matlab.
- Experience with corner analysis and Monte Carlo analysis.
- Experience collaborating with photonics and electronics teams.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience in product development or projects with industry.
- Experience in optical communications.
- Experience in silicon photonic integrated circuit design and measurements.
- Experience in design for manufacturing and reliability.
- Experience in microcontrollers and digital control.
- Strong publication record.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Willingness and ability to learn quickly. Self-starter with a “no task is too big or small” attitude.
- Comprehensive Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
- Retirement Savings Matching Program
- Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
- Generous Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
- Paid Family Leave
- Short Term & Long Term Disability
- Training & Development
- Commuter Benefits
- Flexible, hybrid workplace model
- Equity grants
Lightmatter recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, veteran status, and other protected status as required by applicable law.
Top Skills
What We Do
Lightmatter is a startup photonics company that has pioneered a new paradigm in processor chip architecture that uses photons instead of electrons. Now the leader in the photonic AI compute “space race,” this new class of high performance semiconductors is the foundation of Lightmatter’s mission to enable the growth of computing, reduce harmful emissions associated with this growth, and democratize computing for all.
Lightmatter's technology accelerates critical operations in deep neural networks, using an array of programmable photonic elements fabricated alongside transistors in conventional computer chip fabrication processes. Our close-knit team of engineers has created an integrated photonics chip and ultra-high performance interconnect that is faster, more efficient, and cooler than anything else on earth (or anything ever experienced before) to power the next giant leaps in human progress.
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