Principal Photonics R&D Engineer

Company Description

Lumotive is revolutionizing optics by ushering in the era of programmable, software-defined optics. 

Our award-winning, highly patented Light Control Metasurface (LCM™) chip is the first commercially available software-defined optical beam forming solid-state technology addressing critical gaps in multiple industries, from 3D sensing to AI computing.

Our LCM™ chips have already secured multiple design wins in the lidar market, enabling solid-state lidar with unprecedented performance, small size, and low cost. Future beam forming chips will target optical circuit switching for AI data centers, free space optical communications, and defense.

Lumotive was named Fast Company’s Next Big Thing in Tech and won two CES Innovation Awards. Headquartered in Redmond, WA, with offices in San Jose, CA, and Vancouver, Canada, Lumotive is backed by notable investors, including Gates Frontier, MetaVC Partners, Quan Funds, Samsung Ventures, and Uniquest.

Job Description

As a Photonics R&D Engineer you will be responsible for the opto-electronic architecture, design, and characterization of Lumotive’s next-generation dynamic metasurface technology. This involves a broad combination of nanophotonic and optical simulation, electronic driver architecture, low-level software development, system-level engineering, close collaboration with manufacturing team, and opto-electronic characterization of the devices. The ideal candidate will have tremendous versatility, blend of strong computational and practical lab skills with system engineering capabilities. This position reports directly to the CTO.

Your responsibilities will be:

· Multi-scale architecture and design, from metasurface unit cell, to electronic driver, to low-level control firmware and pattern generation, and ultimately to integration of beam forming metasurface into broader optical system

· Multi-physics design of metasurface unit cell with a combination of electromagnetic simulations, liquid crystal dynamics, and electrostatics with constraints based on CMOS manufacturing, electrical performance, and LC materials

· Opto-electronic system engineering tradeoffs like power, size, cost, and optical performance and how they are affected by the metasurface properties

· Computational and emipircal modulation pattern optimization and large scale array simulations to optimize beamforming performance

· Optical and electrical characterization of dynamic metasurface chips, including guiding the development of new testing infrastructure

· Work closely with ASIC design team on driver architecture, compute requirements and optimization of modulation pattern generation·

Qualifications

• PhD in nanophotonics, integrated photonics, optics, electrical engineering, physics or related fields
• 5+ years industry experience in integrated photonics, diffractive optics, or metasurfaces
• 5+ years industry experience with Python, collaborating with Git, and writing unit / integration tests
• Hands on experience with optical characterization of optoelectronic and photonic devices
• Experience with opto-electronic system engineering
• Extremely clear written and verbal communication skills

Additional Information

Pay range is $150,000 to $220,000 (USD) and scaled according to location + Performance based Quarterly Bonus + Equity depending on experience.

Benefits

• Health Insurance
• Dental 
• Vision
• FSA
• HSA
• PTO
• 14 Paid Holidays
• Company paid Benefits
  • Life Insurance 
  • Long Term Disability 
  • Short Term Disability

Lumotive is an equal opportunity employer - All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other legally protected status.

All your information will be kept confidential.