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
A Principal Photonic Systems Architect 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 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 packaging and assembly. 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
- Engage in creative problem-solving to realize innovative architecture solutions for high-performance datacom products
- Specify the hardware, manufacturing, link, and network architecture and requirements for optical interconnect products
- Review and guide the work of other team members
- Actively collaborate across disciplines—with electronics, photonics, and mechanical engineering teams—to design and review systems, algorithms, circuits, and devices that meet performance, power, thermal, reliability, and production requirements
- Actively collaborate with the engineering, product, and architecture teams to define requirements for system, circuit, device characterization, debug, and validation
- Conduct system-level performance analysis, including power consumption, latency, bandwidth, and cost
- Research and evaluate emerging optical interconnect technologies, and develop long-term technology roadmaps, aligning with industry trends and company strategic objectives
- Effectively communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences
- Work closely with internal teams on functionality, interfaces, and documentation
- Publish and present novel ideas, and participate in premier photonics conferences
- Guide, coach, & mentor junior engineers and architects
This is not a complete listing of the responsibilities. It’s a representation of the things you will be doing.
Qualifications
- A Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, or similar discipline with at least 8 years of experience
- Minimum 8 years of experience in photonic devices, photonic integrated circuits, and semiconductor physics
- Minimum 8 years experience in architecting, modeling, and characterization of electro-optic interfaces and datacom links
- Proven track record in hardware bring-up, working collaboratively with silicon, package, and systems teams
- Expert-level understanding in the design, deployment, and operation of optical interconnects for computing systems, lasers, thermal management, and packaging
- Proficiency with computational and simulation tools (e.g., in Matlab, Python, C, and/or commercial software packages, such as VPI Systems, Keysight ADS, Lumerical)
- Experience collaborating with photonics, electronics, mechanical, packaging, and systems teams
Preferred Qualifications
- Demonstrated strong problem solving skills specifically pertaining to problems that do not have obvious solutions
- Deep understanding of market trends and application of optical interconnect
- Strong publication record in optical communications is a plus
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Experience in mentoring junior engineers
- Willing and able to learn quickly. Self-starter with a “no task is too big or small” attitude
We offer competitive compensation. The base salary range for this role determined based on location, experience, educational background, and market data.
Salary Range
$204,000—$265,000 USD
- 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
- Stock Option Plan
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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