PV Engineer

Lightyear; Oostrum; Hybrid; EUR 52,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension scheme

40 vacation days

Job summary

Lightyear seeks a PV Engineer to design and develop advanced integrated PV systems for vehicles, working in our Venray lab and production environment.

You will design experiments, analyze results, and translate findings into robust product improvements while collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure vehicle performance and manufacturability.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Materials Science, PV Engineering, Physics, or related field.
• 2+ years of relevant experience in PV or related role.
• Strong knowledge of PV module and system design.
• Experience designing experiments and assessing reliability.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop advanced PV systems for vehicles.
• Improve double-curved PV panels with new materials and architectures.
• Own experimental work: plan, execute, and analyze tests; translate results into product improvements.
• Collaborate with exteriors engineers, testing, power electronics, suppliers, and sales for lab-to-production alignment.

Skills

PV module design

Experiment planning

Data interpretation

Cross-functional collaboration

Hands-on lab work

Education

Master’s degree in Materials Science / PV Engineering / Physics

Tools

Python

MATLAB

LabVIEW

JMP

Job description

Are you enthusiastic about working on the next (re)evolution occurring in vehicle-integrated photovoltaics? And are you passionate about solar hardware, creative problem solving, programming or modelling, learning, collaborating and have a maker attitude?

Join us on our mission!

Working at Lightyear is a unique experience. You get the opportunity to work for a company with a pure and meaningful mission. A mission that will make a positive and lasting impact on future generations.

What will you do as a PV Engineer?

Lightyear develops advanced vehicle-integrated photovoltaic (ViPV) technology for clean mobility. Our double-curved automotive solar panels combine solar performance, durability, low weight, and automotive-grade integration in a product designed for real-world use and scalable manufacturing.

As a PV Engineer, you will:

• Design and develop advanced integrated PV systems for vehicles.
• Improve our double-curved solar panels by developing and implementing new materials, technological building blocks, and module architectures that increase efficiency and durability while meeting customer and internal requirements for things like weight, durability and efficiency.
• Take ownership of experimental work: translating requirements into testable concepts, planning and executing designs of experiments, building and characterizing samples, analysing results, and turning the findings into robust product improvements.
• Work closely with other exteriors engineers, testing, power electronics, suppliers, and sales to ensure that solutions perform not only in the laboratory, but also in production and in the vehicle.

A day as a PV Engineer

Your day combines engineering analysis with practical work in our Venray lab and manufacturing environment. You might begin by aligning project priorities and requirements with colleagues from PV, proto or testing, then review data from a recent module build or reliability test.

Next, you may design a new experiment to test a new possible material, process change, or module architecture. You prepare or build samples with the help of Proto Engineers, coordinate the test execution, and characterize performance to determine whether the change improves efficiency, durability, weight, or manufacturability. When results are unexpected, you investigate the underlying mechanism, refine the hypothesis, and plan the next iteration.

Later, you analyse and document the results using appropriate data-processing tools, share conclusions with the multidisciplinary team, and translate the evidence into a clear design decision. The role requires regular on-site presence in Venray for close collaboration and hands‑on work, with flexibility to work from home when the activities allow it.

What do we expect from a PV Engineer?

• Deliver measurable improvements in module efficiency, durability, weight, and manufacturability through new materials, processes, or architectures.
• Plan and execute well-structured experimental programmes, including sample preparation, characterization, reliability testing, and data analysis.
• Translate experimental evidence and physical understanding into clear, robust engineering decisions and product specifications.
• Work effectively across PV research, manufacturing, testing, suppliers, and automotive customer interfaces.
• Advance promising concepts from laboratory validation towards repeatable, automotive-grade, production-relevant solutions.

We are looking for someone with:

• A Master’s Degree (Materials Science, Photovoltaic Engineering, Physics, or similar);
• 2+ years of relevant experience in a similar or at least (closely) related role;
• Strong knowledge of PV module and system design, with an understanding of the wider PV technology value chain.
• Knowledge of glass, polymers, composites, and other materials used in PV module construction.
• Experience designing and executing experiments, characterizing PV components or modules, and assessing reliability.
• Familiarity with relevant automotive and PV standards and the ability to translate requirements into verification activities.
• A hands‑on engineering mindset: comfortable building samples, working in the lab, interpreting data, and iterating based on evidence.
• Experience with data acquisition and processing tools such as Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW, or JMP is useful.
• Ability to work in a dynamic, fast‑paced team.

Don't meet every single requirement? We encourage you to apply if you have the relevant foundation, curiosity, and drive to make a difference.

What can you expect from Lightyear?

• A high degree of freedom and independence in your role
• A role within a multidisciplinary team consisting of highly motivated, inquisitive and talented people with a broad diversity of experience
• Participation in a good pension scheme
• 40 vacation days per year (based on a 40 hour contract)