Photonic Component Modelling Engineer

Salience Labs; Oxford; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Salience Labs Ltd. seeks a Photonic Component Modelling Engineer to build and qualify behavioral and compact models that capture device physics for system-level verification of photonic and electronic components.

You’ll work with system verification, photonic design, and characterization teams to extract model parameters from lab measurements and ensure model fidelity across PVT conditions. Strong scripting in Python or MATLAB is essential.

Qualifications

• MS/PhD (or equivalent experience) in photonics, electrical engineering, applied physics, or a related field.
• 3+ years of experience in photonic component design and/or simulation.
• Solid understanding of integrated photonic building blocks, both passive and active, and their electrical drive requirements.
• Strong scripting ability (Python and/or MATLAB) for model fitting, data analysis, and simulation/measurement correlation.
• Comfortable working in Linux and with version-controlled repositories.
• Strong documentation habits, including model specifications, QA reports, and traceability from reference data to released models.
• Clear communication and a collaborative approach across disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain models of optical primitives for simulation and system verification environments.
• Verify models across process, voltage, and temperature corners (PVT).
• Release models that pass defined QA criteria.
• Verify PDK component libraries so updates don’t break circuit-level simulations.
• Extract model parameters from lab measurements and correlate with simulations.
• Build and maintain automated tooling (Python and/or MATLAB) for parameter extraction, model fitting, and regression tracking.
• Maintain regression suites so model/PDK changes are checked against reference data.
• Resolve model discrepancies at system level and feed back into photonic design.
• Keep reproducible records: version-controlled models, scripts, reference data, and QA results.

Skills

Python

MATLAB

Photonic design

Modeling

Linux

Documentation

Education

MS/PhD in photonics or related field

Tools

FDTD

Mode solvers

Circuit simulators

Job description

About Us

Salience Labs is building an industry-defining approach to optical circuit switching for AI infrastructure, engineered for real latency reduction and cost savings. We're moving towards real-world deployment, and joining at this stage means genuine ownership over that next chapter, working alongside a highly technical team on one of the most consequential problems in AI infrastructure today.

About the Role

We're looking for a Photonic Component Modelling Engineer to build and qualify behavioral and compact models that accurately capture the underlying device physics. Your models will be the foundation for system-level verification of systems that combine photonic and electronic components.

You’ll need to understand how a component’s behavior shifts with its surrounding optical and electrical circuitry and with operating conditions.

What You’ll Do

Working closely with the system verification, photonic design, and photonic characterization teams, you will:

• Develop and maintain models of optical primitives (modulators, switches, photodetectors, couplers, etc.) for simulation and system verification environments
• Verify that models accurately represent device physics across process, voltage, and temperature (PVT) corners
• Release models that pass defined QA criteria
• Verify PDK component libraries so that PDK updates and process variations don’t break circuit-level simulations
• Extract model parameters from lab measurements and work with characterization to correlate simulation with measurement
• Build and maintain automated tooling (Python and/or MATLAB) for parameter extraction, model fitting, and regression tracking
• Maintain regression suites so model and PDK changes are checked against reference data before release
• Resolve model discrepancies found at system level and feed model-based design risks back to photonic design
• Keep reproducible records: version-controlled models, scripts, reference data, and QA results

What You Bring

Required

• MS/PhD (or equivalent experience) in photonics, electrical engineering, applied physics, or a related field
• 3+ years of experience in photonic component design and/or simulation
• Solid understanding of integrated photonic building blocks, both passive and active, and their electrical drive requirements
• Strong scripting ability (Python and/or MATLAB) for model fitting, data analysis, and simulation/measurement correlation
• Comfortable working in Linux and with version-controlled repositories
• Strong documentation habits, including model specifications, QA reports, and traceability from reference data to released models
• Clear communication and a collaborative approach across disciplines

Nice to have

• Experience modelling signal propagation in photonic integrated circuits
• Hands-on experience with silicon photonics platforms
• Experience with optical/photonic simulation tools (e.g., FDTD, mode solvers, circuit-level simulators)
• Familiarity with foundry PDK-based photonic design flows
• Tcl scripting