Space Laser Engineer: High-Power Fiber Lasers

Star Catcher; Jacksonville (FL); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

401(k) retirement plan

Life insurance

Paid parental leave

Job summary

Star Catcher seeks a Laser Engineer to design and optimize high-power fiber laser systems for space-to-space power beaming. You will define architectures, model performance, and select components to enable robust, space-ready lasers.

You will collaborate with electrical, thermal, and beam-delivery teams to ensure safe operation in vacuum, manage reliability, and support space-qualification activities, including regulatory compliance and vendor coordination.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Physics, Optical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related technical discipline.
• 3+ years hands-on experience designing, building, and testing high-power fiber lasers or amplifiers.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop high-power, near-diffraction-limited fiber laser sources and amplifiers for space-to-space laser power beaming.
• Define laser architecture and requirements with senior engineer including wavelength, output power, beam quality, linewidth, polarization, efficiency, thermal load, and reliability.
• Model laser performance including rate-equation gain, ASE, thermal effects, nonlinear thresholds (SBS, SRS, SPM), and TMI.
• Select components for high-power fiber lasers: gain and delivery fibers, pump diodes, combiners, cladding light strippers, isolators, end caps, and wavelength combiners.
• Design, assemble, splice, and test high-power fiber lasers; characterize power, spectrum, M², polarization, and stability.
• Develop non-standard sources such as thulium-doped, Raman, and frequency-doubled fiber lasers; support beam delivery integration.
• Collaborate with EE, thermal, and beam-expander teams on diode drivers, vacuum heat rejection, output collimation, and beam delivery.
• Support space qualification activities including radiation attenuation, thermal-vacuum, and vibration performance, outgassing, and derating of pump diodes.
• Assist technicians and manage relationships with vendors for fiber, diode, and component parts.

Skills

High-power fiber lasers

Laser safety

Optical modeling

TMI mitigation

Fusion splicing

Beam quality measurement

System integration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Physics/Optical/Electrical Engineering

Tools

RP Fiber Power

Spectral analyzers

Beam profilers

Power meters

Job description

Star Catcher seeks a Laser Engineer to design and optimize high-power fiber laser systems for space-to-space power beaming. You will define architectures, model performance, and select components to enable robust, space-ready lasers.

You will collaborate with electrical, thermal, and beam-delivery teams to ensure safe operation in vacuum, manage reliability, and support space-qualification activities, including regulatory compliance and vendor coordination.