Senior EO/IR Optical Engineer for Space Payloads

Arcfield; Louisville (CO); On-site; USD 149,676 - 260,257; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Life Insurance

Paid Time Off

Holiday Pay

Disability Insurance

Retirement and Savings

Job summary

Arcfield is seeking an EO/IR Optical Engineer to own the optical solution from model to measurement to flight hardware. You will work on non‑sequential ray tracing, interferometry, and metrology for real payloads and test data.

The role emphasizes translating analysis into engineering decisions, tolerances, and procurement specs, with collaboration across multidisciplinary teams and rapid design‑build‑test cycles. Compensation reflects space‑engineering experience and location.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher with 12–15 years (BS); MS 10–13 years; PhD 10+ years in software engineering for high‑reliability space/aerospace.
• Direct experience with FRED or similar non‑sequential optical modeling tools; FRED preferred.
• Experience with stray‑light, ghost, scatter, baffle, or detector‑irradiance analysis.
• Hands‑on optical metrology or interferometry, including test setup, data interpretation, and error‑source diagnosis.
• Ability to convert analysis and test results into engineering decisions, tolerances, and verification evidence.
• Clear technical writing and the ability to brief results to scientists, engineers, program managers, customers, and suppliers.

Responsibilities

• Build, validate, and maintain FRED non‑sequential optical models for EO/IR payloads and flight-like test setups.
• Perform stray‑light, ghost, scatter, vignetting, and detector‑irradiance analyses affecting hardware design.
• Model coatings, apertures, stops, source geometries, CAD structures, BRDF/BSDF data, and detector maps.
• Plan and execute optical metrology for lenses, mirrors, windows, filters, etalons, and payloads.
• Use interferometric methods to evaluate surface figure, wavefront error, wedge, and alignment.
• Support PSF, MTF, spectral transmission, radiometric, and stray‑light testing for prototype and flight hardware.
• Develop alignment plans, test procedures, verification matrices, and supplier criteria.
• Collaborate with optics, mechanical, thermal, detector, software, manufacturing, quality, and program teams.

Education

Bachelor’s degree or higher in computer engineering or computer science

Tools

FRED

Zemax OpticStudio

CODE V

MATLAB

Python

Job description

Arcfield is seeking an EO/IR Optical Engineer to own the optical solution from model to measurement to flight hardware. You will work on non‑sequential ray tracing, interferometry, and metrology for real payloads and test data.

The role emphasizes translating analysis into engineering decisions, tolerances, and procurement specs, with collaboration across multidisciplinary teams and rapid design‑build‑test cycles. Compensation reflects space‑engineering experience and location.