Director, Photonics Hardware Validation – Hybrid & Equity

Lightmatter; Mountain View (CA); Hybrid; USD 261,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Retirement Savings Matching Program

Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&

Generous Time Off (Vacation, Sick &

Paid Family Leave

Short Term & Long Term Disability

Training & Development

Flexible, hybrid workplace model

Equity grants (applicable to full-time

Job summary

Lightmatter is seeking a senior leader in Silicon Engineering to own end-to-end post-silicon validation across optical, electrical, and system levels. You will architect scalable lab infrastructure, drive automated testing, and ensure world-class reliability for hyperscale AI data centers.

You will collaborate with Silicon Design, Laser, Packaging, Software, and Supply Chain leadership to define validation plans, telemetry, and on-chip diagnostic monitors, enabling robust validation coverage and

Qualifications

• BS, MS, or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Photonics, Physics, or a related technical field.
• 12+ years of semiconductor or hardware validation experience, with significant exposure to optical/photonics link-level products.
• 5+ years of experience developing test content, automation infrastructure, and scripting in Python or C++.
• Proven leadership track record managing cross-functional engineering teams in a fast-paced environment working on transceivers or link-level products.
• Solid understanding of industry standard requirements (IEEE, MSA, OIF) and product validation through corner testing (temperature, voltage, and process matrices), including defining validation plans and generating validation reports.

Responsibilities

• Scale the product validation team by recruiting, mentoring, and developing multi-disciplinary talent across optical, electrical, software, and automation domains.
• Drive silicon and platform validation strategies, requirements, and execution plans for our optical interconnect platform.
• Architect and define comprehensive, at-scale validation environments, test frameworks, automated test suites, and telemetry data collection workflows.
• Analyze silicon and system architecture to identify integration risks, design gaps, and marginality issues requiring rigorous corner validation.
• Oversee the execution of validation plans, leading technical triage and root-cause debug for hardware, firmware, and system-level issues.
• Partner closely with Silicon, Packaging, Hardware, and Software teams to align validation coverage with design specifications and system requirements.
• Influence pre-silicon design and simulation milestones to ensure feature completeness, advocating for validation hooks, telemetry sensors, and diagnostic monitors on-chip and on reference platforms.
• Drive hardware and software automation initiatives to enhance testing throughput, repeatability, and data analytics capabilities across validation labs.

Skills

Leadership

Test automation

Data analysis

Cross-functional collaboration

Telemetry

Education

BS/MS/PhD in Electrical Engineering or related field

Tools

Python

C++

Automation frameworks

Job description

Lightmatter is seeking a senior leader in Silicon Engineering to own end-to-end post-silicon validation across optical, electrical, and system levels. You will architect scalable lab infrastructure, drive automated testing, and ensure world-class reliability for hyperscale AI data centers.

You will collaborate with Silicon Design, Laser, Packaging, Software, and Supply Chain leadership to define validation plans, telemetry, and on-chip diagnostic monitors, enabling robust validation coverage and