Senior Optical Systems Architect & Tech Leader

Coherent Corp.; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Coherent Corp. in Sunnyvale, CA seeks a Distinguished MTS to provide senior technical leadership for fiberoptic components, OCS architecture, and system-level tradeoffs.

You will drive validation, reliability, and scalable test strategies, collaborating with R&D, manufacturing, quality, and supply chain to accelerate decisions and enable NPI and ramp to production. The candidate will lead cross-functional teams, mentor engineers, and guide complex technical execution across optics, electronics,

Qualifications

• Master's or Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics, Optical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a closely related field.
• 15+ years of experience in optical communications, photonic systems, or related technical leadership roles.
• Demonstrated experience in system-level optical architecture, validation, manufacturing scale-up, and cross-functional technical execution.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, communication, and technical leadership skills with the ability to influence decisions across multiple organizations.

Responsibilities

• Provide senior technical leadership for fiberoptic components, OCS architecture, and system-level tradeoff analysis, with emphasis on performance, cost, manufacturability, and scalability.
• Drive validation and characterization strategy for OCS subsystems and assemblies, including optical performance, insertion loss, crosstalk, switching behavior, calibration, and reliability.
• Support test development, automation, and data analysis to improve coverage, repeatability, throughput, and insight into technical issues.
• Lead root cause analysis and corrective actions for complex issues across optics, electronics, mechanics, packaging, thermal behavior, and software interfaces.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and suppliers to support design reviews, qualification, NPI, and production ramp activities.

Skills

Fiberoptic systems

Optical circuit switching

System architecture

Technical leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Root cause analysis

Data analysis

Education

Master's or Ph.D. in Applied Physics or Optical/Electrical Engineering

Tools

Python

MATLAB

Job description

Coherent Corp. in Sunnyvale, CA seeks a Distinguished MTS to provide senior technical leadership for fiberoptic components, OCS architecture, and system-level tradeoffs.

You will drive validation, reliability, and scalable test strategies, collaborating with R&D, manufacturing, quality, and supply chain to accelerate decisions and enable NPI and ramp to production. The candidate will lead cross-functional teams, mentor engineers, and guide complex technical execution across optics, electronics,