Photonic IC Design Engineer: AI‑Driven Layout & Tapeouts

K2 Space Corporation; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Base salary plus equity

Comprehensive benefits package

Paid time off and parental leave

Life insurance and other perks

Job summary

K2 Space Corporation in Seattle is seeking a Photonic IC Design Engineer focused on design automation and modeling. You will own the photonic design flow, implement inverse design and AI-guided methods, and collaborate with test/automation to ensure designs are fabrication-ready and characterized from design to tapeout.

You will develop device blocks for PICs across various platforms, maintain the component library, and contribute to lab measurements that calibrate models and rules for

Qualifications

• PhD or MS in electrical engineering, optics, physics, computer science, or related field, or a Bachelor's with equivalent experience.
• Built inverse design or computational design tools that produced fabricated, measured devices on commercial photonics foundries.
• Strong software engineering: Python, autodiff frameworks, version control, and maintainable shared code.
• Electromagnetic simulation (FDTD, FEM, or RCWA) and hands-on lab characterization correlated to simulation.

Responsibilities

• Own the photonic design automation flow: parametric layout generation, simulation orchestration, design-space exploration, and sign-off across multiple foundries.
• Build and maintain inverse design with lithography models and robustness to process variation.
• Bring AI-guided tools into the design loop for exploration, layout generation, optimization, and data analysis.
• Own device and circuit blocks on product PICs from specification through tapeout and characterization.
• Partner with the photonics test and automation team on characterization and test-data pipeline.
• Characterize devices in lab and test stations; turn data into model calibrations and design rules.
• Maintain pcells and compact models for the component library with regression tests.
• Extend models into calibration and control for tunable PICs and develop algorithms from the same models used in design.
• Develop behavioral and physical models of photonic circuits, links, lasers, and gain media.
• Make the flow usable through documentation, reviews, and mentoring.

Skills

Python

Autodiff frameworks

Version control

EM simulation

Education

PhD in Electrical Engineering / Optics / Physics / CS

MS in Electrical Engineering / Optics / Physics / CS

BS with equivalent experience

Tools

gdsfactory

KLayout

Cadence

FDTD / FEM

Job description

K2 Space Corporation in Seattle is seeking a Photonic IC Design Engineer focused on design automation and modeling. You will own the photonic design flow, implement inverse design and AI-guided methods, and collaborate with test/automation to ensure designs are fabrication-ready and characterized from design to tapeout.

You will develop device blocks for PICs across various platforms, maintain the component library, and contribute to lab measurements that calibrate models and rules for