Senior Free-Space Optics Engineer: Atmosphere & Photonics

K2 Space; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Health benefits

PTO

Job summary

K2 Space in Los Angeles is seeking a Senior Photonics Engineer focused on free-space optics. You will define how we measure atmospheric effects and how optical hardware works through turbulence, spanning lab emulators, field links, and mountaintop campaigns.

You will own atmospheric models, calibrate them with data, and collaborate with PIC and payload teams as we scale optical payloads across missions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in optics, physics, electrical engineering or related field.
• 5+ years of hands-on free-space optics experience in FSO, AO, or atmospheric propagation.
• Led end-to-end free-space optical experiments: bench design, data collection, and modeling.
• Working knowledge of optical turbulence and propagation theory with Python for modeling.

Responsibilities

• Design and build tabletop experiments emulating optical propagation through turbulence.
• Measure coupling efficiency, fading, BER, and control-loop bandwidth.
• Characterize wavefront sensing and correction hardware and photonic alternatives.
• Coordinate outdoor campaigns and mountaintop campaigns including safety and data reduction.
• Own atmospheric channel models in Python and align them to lab/field data.

Skills

Free-space optics

Adaptive optics

Atmospheric propagation

Python modeling

Lab experiments

Education

Bachelor's degree in optics/physics/EE

MS or PhD in related field

Tools

Zemax

AOTools

WaveProp

Job description

K2 Space in Los Angeles is seeking a Senior Photonics Engineer focused on free-space optics. You will define how we measure atmospheric effects and how optical hardware works through turbulence, spanning lab emulators, field links, and mountaintop campaigns.

You will own atmospheric models, calibrate them with data, and collaborate with PIC and payload teams as we scale optical payloads across missions.