Photonics Test Engineer

Opticore; Berkeley (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Opticore in Berkeley is seeking a hands-on photonics test engineer to develop and execute test plans for photonic integrated circuits and devices. You will perform optical and electrical measurements, build automated test setups, and analyze device performance, collaborating with PIC designers and fabrication teams.

Experience with tunable lasers, OSA, VNAs, and Python is important; preferred experience with LiNbO3 or SiN PICs and wafer-level testing.

Qualifications

• Experience testing and characterizing photonic integrated circuits or integrated optical devices.
• Strong understanding of silicon photonics, silicon nitride photonics, or related integrated photonics platforms.
• Hands-on experience with optical test equipment such as tunable lasers, optical power meters, OSA, VNAs, photodetectors, and optical probes.
• Experience with fiber-to-chip coupling, optical alignment, wafer probing, or packaged photonic devices.
• Strong Python skills for test automation, data acquisition, analysis, and visualization.
• Experience interpreting experimental data and connecting measured device behavior to underlying photonic designs and physics.
• Familiarity with PIC fabrication, layouts, tapeouts, PDKs, or device simulation is highly desirable.
• Ability to work hands-on in a laboratory environment and troubleshoot complex optical/electrical test setups.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute test and characterization plans for photonic integrated circuits and individual photonic devices
• Perform optical and electrical measurements of fabricated PICs and components
• Characterize devices including waveguides, grating couplers, modulators, photodetectors, resonators, switches, and other photonic components
• Build and improve automated test setups for wafer-level and packaged-device characterization
• Develop Python-based measurement, data acquisition, analysis, and visualization workflows
• Perform fiber-to-chip coupling, optical alignment, probing, and other hands-on photonic measurements
• Analyze device performance including optical loss, coupling efficiency, bandwidth, extinction ratio, responsivity, insertion loss, and related parameters
• Work closely with PIC designers to compare measured performance against simulations and design targets
• Support debugging, root-cause analysis, and design iterations based on experimental results
• Collaborate with fabrication, packaging, electrical, and systems teams to improve device and test performance
• Help establish repeatable characterization methodologies and test infrastructure as the technology moves toward higher-volume experimentation and production

Skills

PIC test engineering

Python for test automation

Data interpretation

Hands-on lab work

Tools

Tunable lasers

Optical power meters

OSA

VNAs

Photodetectors

Job description

Conventional chips are hitting a wall, and as AI inference demand grows, power consumption is becoming the single biggest constraint on deployment at scale.

Opticore is developing a photonic computing system that accelerates artificial intelligence workloads with exceptional speed and energy efficiency.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute test and characterization plans for photonic integrated circuits and individual photonic devices
• Perform optical and electrical measurements of fabricated PICs and components
• Characterize devices including waveguides, grating couplers, modulators, photodetectors, resonators, switches, and other active/passive photonic components
• Build and improve automated test setups for wafer-level and packaged-device characterization
• Develop Python-based measurement, data acquisition, analysis, and visualization workflows
• Perform fiber-to-chip coupling, optical alignment, probing, and other hands-on photonic measurements
• Analyze device performance including optical loss, coupling efficiency, bandwidth, extinction ratio, responsivity, insertion loss, and related parameters
• Work closely with PIC designers to compare measured performance against simulations and design targets
• Support debugging, root-cause analysis, and design iterations based on experimental results
• Collaborate with fabrication, packaging, electrical, and systems teams to improve device and test performance
• Help establish repeatable characterization methodologies and test infrastructure as the technology moves toward higher-volume experimentation and production

Required Qualifications

• Experience testing and characterizing photonic integrated circuits or integrated optical devices
• Strong understanding of silicon photonics, silicon nitride photonics, or related integrated photonics platforms
• Hands-on experience with optical test equipment such as tunable lasers, optical power meters, OSA, VNAs, photodetectors, and optical/electrical probes
• Experience with fiber-to-chip coupling, optical alignment, wafer probing, or packaged photonic devices
• Strong Python skills for test automation, data acquisition, analysis, and visualization
• Experience interpreting experimental data and connecting measured device behavior to underlying photonic designs and physics
• Familiarity with PIC fabrication, layouts, tapeouts, PDKs, or device simulation is highly desirable
• Ability to work hands-on in a laboratory environment and troubleshoot complex optical/electrical test setups

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) or lithium-niobate photonics
• Experience with silicon nitride (SiN) PICs
• Experience with wafer-level automated testing or high-throughput photonic characterization
• Experience characterizing high-speed electro-optic devices
• Experience with Lumerical, COMSOL, or other photonic simulation tools
• Experience designing PIC test structures or contributing to PIC layouts
• Experience taking devices from design and fabrication through characterization and iteration