Optical Engineer (Laser Systems)

Furientis; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Furientis seeks an experienced Optical Engineer to own the coherent channel from source to detector. You will define transmitter specs, manage laser sources, and ensure the channel meets performance targets for a high-rate missile seeker system.

You will lead design and integration of optics, receivers, and signal chains, while coordinating with vendors and safety protocols to ship hardware capable of flight testing.

Qualifications

• B.S. in Optics, Photonics, Physics, or Electrical Engineering; M.S. or Ph.D. preferred.
• 5+ years of active EO work: ladar, interferometry, laser rangefinders, or free-space optical links.
• Laser source fluency: linewidth, coherence, modulation, and the failure modes of each.
• Pulsed lasers (Q-switched Er:glass and seeded MOPA transmitters) qualification.
• Design and integration of beam steering devices (Risley prisms, FSMs)
• Photodetector fluency at 1.5 µm: PIN and balanced receivers, APDs, SPADs
• Fiber and free-space bench craft: alignment and measurements
• Radiometry and link budget analysis from first principles
• Laser safety: ANSI Z136.1, NOHD
• Signal processing for channel from photocurrent to measurement
• Python or similar scripting
• Zemax design; stray-light analysis with FRED or TracePro

Responsibilities

• Architect active EO channels: source, modulation, transmit path, receiver, and detection.
• Own the link budget end to end and defend it against measured data.
• Write the channel side of the laser transmitter specification and ICD.
• Laser source selection and qualification, near term off-the-shelf transmitters, plus modulators and detectors, and manage vendor relationships.
• Characterize transmitters as channel components and verify acceptance at channel level.
• Design and build the coherent receiver: optical, electrical, and signal chain.
• Integrate the transmitter into the channel with trigger and synchronization; shared apertures and signs-off.
• Transition bench demonstrations to packaging for flight environment.
• Operate lasers safely and legally per NOHD and range safety.
• Deliver the coherent channel measurements into fusion/tracking stack with error models.

Skills

Active EO work

Ladar systems

Coherent optical links

Python scripting

Link-budget analysis

Beam steering systems

Optics alignment

Zemax design

Education

B.S. in Optics, Photonics, Physics, or Electrical Engineering

MS or PhD preferred

Tools

FRED

TracePro

LabVIEW

Job description

America is critically deficient in production of defensive munitions- we currently produce shipborne interceptors in the few hundreds per year while our adversaries are producing offensive threats in the tens of thousands per year. Furientis was started to help solve this problem- introducing a new class of cost-effective, high production rate, interceptor missiles. We’re seeking motivated individuals who internalize this problem and are eager to apply their past experience in similar industries (aerospace, defense, automotive/racing, robotics) and out of the box thinking to solve this problem for the US and its allies.

About The Team

The Seeker Team builds the eyes and the targeting logic of our weapon system: a low-cost, mass-producible, multimodal missile seeker that leans on commercial supply chains where they outperform, and vertically integrates wherever possible. On a modern missile, the seeker is 40 to 60% of unit cost and often drives overly long delivery cycles; accordingly, the seeker team is at the tip of the spear for delivering capability to our customers and value to the taxpayer.

Seeker design has exactly two real constraints: physics and mission. Nothing else is a show-stopper, only an obstacle to overcome. We are a small, deeply technical team that drives capability through ingenuity and bias for action and ships hardware that flies. This is a wear-many-hats environment where you must be comfortable "building the airplane in flight" and stepping well outside your comfort zone; a narrowly scoped role with clean handoffs is not what this team offers.

This is an AI-native team. Through fluent use of cutting-edge agentic coding tools, one engineer here consistently out-delivers a much larger conventional team. You will have opinions about where these tools help and where they do not, provide governance input, and build out an AI-centric workflow from day one.

About The Role

You own the seeker's coherent channel from source to signal: laser illumination, coherent detection, and the active EO path that runs alongside the passive LWIR train. The architecture, the link budget, the receiver, and the bench demonstrations that become flight hardware are yours. You are also the laser transmitters' customer and integrator: you own what they must deliver, namely the transmitter specification, the channel-level proof that bought or built lasers close your link budget, and their integration into the channel.

Designing and building the lasers themselves belongs to the Laser Engineer; judging them, specifying them, and making the channel perform with them belongs to you. Shared apertures and anything the passive train touches carry the opto-mechanical engineer's sign-off; the coherent channel's performance carries yours.

What You’ll Do

• Architect active EO channels: source, modulation, transmit path, receiver, and detection scheme.
• Own the link budget end to end and defend it against measured data.
• Write the channel side of the laser transmitter specification and ICD: pulse energy, pulse width, repetition rate, timing jitter, linewidth and coherence, divergence, and the seed format a seeded MOPA amplifier must preserve (seeds are bought off the shelf). The Laser Engineer designs to it; you defend it.
• Laser source selection and qualification, near term, off-the-shelf transmitters from wherever expediency and cost win, plus modulators and detectors, and hold the technical vendor relationships for them.
• Characterize transmitters as channel components and own their acceptance at channel level: measured energy, jitter, beam quality, and coherence over temperature and life, proving the link closes with real hardware rather than datasheets.
• Design and build the coherent receiver: optical, electrical, and the signal chain to a usable measurement.
• Integrate the transmitter into the channel: trigger and synchronization, the swap-ready source interface that lets a bought laser be replaced by our own without redesigning the channel, and, with the opto-mechanical engineer, shared apertures, boresight, and stray light.
• Take the channel from bench demonstration to a packaging path that survives the flight environment.
• Work lasers safely and legally in your own testing: classification inputs, NOHD analysis, and range safety for coherent-channel test events, under the Laser Safety Officer.
• Deliver the coherent channel’s measurements into the fusion and tracking stack with honest error models.

Skills We’re Hiring For

• B.S. in Optics, Photonics, Physics, or Electrical Engineering; M.S. or Ph.D. preferred.
• 5+ years of active EO work: ladar, interferometry, laser rangefinders, or free-space optical links.
• Laser source fluency: linewidth, coherence, modulation, and the failure modes of each.
• Specification, characterization, and integration of pulsed lasers (Q-switched Er:glass and seeded MOPA transmitters)
• Design, alignment, and integration of beam steering devices, e.g., Risley prisms, FSMs, etc.
• Photodetector fluency at 1.5 µm: PIN and balanced receivers, linear-mode APDs, and Geiger-mode SPADs (noise, bandwidth, and timing, and when each earns its place).
• Fiber and free-space bench craft: alignment, isolation, and measurements you can trust, including laser-module qualification measurements (energy, fast-photodiode timing, beam profiling, spectrum).
• Radiometry and link budget analysis from first principles.
• Working laser-safety knowledge: ANSI Z136.1 classification, NOHD, and range use of Class 1M and above hardware.
• Enough signal processing to carry the channel from photocurrent to measurement.
• Proficient scripting for instrument control and data processing in Python or similar.
• Design-level Zemax; stray-light analysis with FRED, ASAP, or TracePro.

Bonus Points For

• Eye-safe 1.5 µm transmitter integration: Er:glass rangefinder or designator modules taken from datasheet to qualified hardware.
• Semi-active laser or designation experience.
• Coherent detection theory and bench practice, heterodyne and homodyne.
• Flight or munition-class optical hardware.
• Daily use of agentic coding tools (Claude Code or similar) to multiply your output, with examples of what you’ve shipped.

Eligibility & Logistics

Location: On-site at our Los Angeles, CA HQ; remote work is not available. Monthly weekend travel for test events and supplier engagements. Clearance: A clearance is not required for this position. Must be a U.S. Person.

Equal Opportunity & Export Compliance

Furientis is an equal-opportunity employer. To comply with U.S. export control laws, employment is contingent on eligibility to access export-controlled information.

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