Photonic IC Design Engineer — Automation & Modeling

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

Benefits offered by this job

Equity compensation

Paid time off

Medical/dental/vision coverage

Life insurance

Parental leave

Professional development

Job summary

K2 Space in Seattle, WA is seeking a Photonic IC Design Engineer to own the photonic design automation flow, inverse design, and calibration. You will build tools, component library, models, and work with test and automation to ensure designs are measurable and manufacturable.

As a founding member of the photonics team, you will set design practices, collaborate with electronics teams, and mentor others while delivering tapeouts from design to lab measurement.

Qualifications

• Built inverse design or computational design tools that produced fabricated, measured devices on commercial photonics foundry platforms.
• Strong software engineering: Python, autodiff frameworks, version control, and maintainable shared code.
• Electromagnetic simulation (FDTD, FEM, or RCWA) and lab characterization correlated to simulation.

Responsibilities

• Own the photonic design automation flow: parametric layout generation, simulation orchestration, design-space exploration, and automated DRC/LVS.
• Build and maintain inverse design as a core engine of the flow with lithography models and variation robustness.
• Bring AI-guided tools into the design loop for exploration, layout generation, and data analysis.
• Own device blocks from spec through tapeout and characterization on the tapeout schedule.
• Collaborate with test/automation to design-for-test and define measurement plans.
• Characterize devices in lab and calibrate models from measurement data.
• Maintain pcells and compact models with regression tests to protect flow changes.
• Extend models for tunable PIC calibration & control (thermal tuning, resonator locking, bias).
• Develop behavioral/physical models of photonic circuits and support co-design with electronics teams.
• Document and mentor to make the flow usable by the whole team.

Skills

Parametric layout generation

Design automation workflows

AI-guided design

Lab characterization

Education

PhD in Electrical Engineering / Optics / Physics / CS

MS in Electrical Engineering / Optics / Physics / CS

Bachelor's degree with equivalent experience

Tools

Python

Autodiff frameworks

Version control (Git)

GDS tooling (e.g., gdsfactory)

KLayout / Cadence

Job description

K2 Space in Seattle, WA is seeking a Photonic IC Design Engineer to own the photonic design automation flow, inverse design, and calibration. You will build tools, component library, models, and work with test and automation to ensure designs are measurable and manufacturable.

As a founding member of the photonics team, you will set design practices, collaborate with electronics teams, and mentor others while delivering tapeouts from design to lab measurement.