Integrated Photonics Engineer

Acceler8 Talent; Arlington (VA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Acceler8 Talent in Arlington, Virginia, United States (On-site) is seeking a hands-on PIC engineer to own the complete photonic integrated circuit development cycle. You will design active and passive photonic devices and collaborate across teams to bring concepts to working hardware.

Join a team focused on heterogeneous photonics for communications, sensing, quantum and security applications, with opportunities to lead device fabrication, testing, and packaging efforts on-site.

Qualifications

• Personally owned or led a PIC tapeout.
• Taken devices from design through experimental measurement.
• Hands-on experience with Lumerical.
• Used KLayout, GDSFactory, Virtuoso or similar layout tools.
• Worked with commercial foundries and PDKs.
• Built or operated optical characterization setups.
• The independence to work across the complete PIC workflow.

Responsibilities

• Designing active and passive photonic devices.
• Simulating device and circuit performance.
• Creating and reviewing PIC layouts.
• Working with foundry PDKs, DRCs and tapeout flows.
• Automating measurements and analysis with Python.
• Using test results to improve subsequent designs.
• Collaborating across fabrication, packaging and electronics.

Skills

PIC tapeout ownership

Device design

Python automation

Tools

Lumerical

KLayout

GDSFactory

Virtuoso

Job description

Acceler8 Talent | Arlington, Virginia, United States (On-site)

$150k–$220k base

I’m working with an early-stage photonics company developing heterogeneous photonic integrated circuits for communications, sensing, quantum and national-security applications.

Founded by experienced leaders from DARPA and the commercial silicon-photonics industry, the company is building optical microsystems that integrate multiple materials and functions on-chip.

They are looking for a hands-on engineer who can own the complete PIC development cycle:

You’ll work on:

• Designing active and passive photonic devices
• Simulating device and circuit performance
• Creating and reviewing PIC layouts
• Working with foundry PDKs, DRCs and tapeout flows
• Automating measurements and analysis with Python
• Using test results to improve subsequent designs
• Collaborating across fabrication, packaging and electronics.

Looking for engineers who have:

• Personally owned or led a PIC tapeout
• Taken devices from design through experimental measurement
• Hands‑on experience with Lumerical
• Used KLayout, GDSFactory, Virtuoso or similar layout tools
• Worked with commercial foundries and PDKs
• Built or operated optical characterization setups
• The independence to work across the complete PIC workflow.

Experience with silicon, SiN, TFLN, III‑V or other heterogeneous photonic platforms can be relevant. High-speed optical testing and photonic packaging are valuable but not essential.

This is an opportunity to move advanced photonic devices rapidly from concept to working hardware while owning considerably more than one isolated part of the process.