Senior EO/IR Optical Engineer: Space Payloads Lead

Arcfield; Louisville (CO); On-site; USD 150,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Life Insurance

Paid Time Off

Holiday Pay

Short Term Disability

Long-Term Disability

Retirement and Savings

Learning and Development opportunities

Wellness programs

Job summary

Arcfield in Colorado is seeking a top-tier EO/IR Optical Engineer to own the optical answer from model to measurement to flight hardware. This role focuses on non-sequential ray tracing, metrology, interferometry, stray-light control, and payload verification across real hardware and test data.

You will build and validate FRED models, perform analyses that influence hardware design, plan metrology, and work with cross-disciplinary teams in rapid design-build-test cycles to close the loop between

Qualifications

• BS with 12–15 years in Optical Engineering or related field.
• 5+ years hands-on EO/IR experience; senior-level judgment preferred.
• Direct experience with FRED or equivalent non-sequential tools.
• Experience with stray-light, ghost, scatter, baffle, or detector-irradiance analyses.
• Hands-on optical metrology or interferometry experience and data interpretation.

Responsibilities

• Build, maintain, and validate FRED non-sequential models for EO/IR payloads and flight hardware.
• Perform stray-light, ghost, scatter, and detector-irradiance analyses influencing hardware design.
• Model coatings, apertures, source geometries, and detector response maps for flight-like tests.
• Plan and execute optical metrology for lenses, mirrors, windows, etalons, and assembled payloads.
• Use interferometry to evaluate surface figure, wavefront, parallelism, and alignment.
• Support PSF, MTF, spectral transmission, radiometric, and stray-light testing for hardware.
• Develop alignment plans, test procedures, and verification matrices for suppliers.
• Collaborate with optical, mechanical, thermal, detector, software, manufacturing, QA, and program teams.
• Close the loop between model, metrology data, hardware, and schedule to resolve discrepancies.

Skills

FRED modeling

EO/IR optics

optical metrology

interferometry

system alignment

data interpretation

cross-functional

Python/MATLAB

Education

BS in Optical Eng / Physics

MS/PhD preferred

Tools

Zemax OpticStudio

CODE V

MATLAB

Python

SolidWorks

CAD import workflows

Job description

Arcfield in Colorado is seeking a top-tier EO/IR Optical Engineer to own the optical answer from model to measurement to flight hardware. This role focuses on non-sequential ray tracing, metrology, interferometry, stray-light control, and payload verification across real hardware and test data.

You will build and validate FRED models, perform analyses that influence hardware design, plan metrology, and work with cross-disciplinary teams in rapid design-build-test cycles to close the loop between