Director of Laser System Development

About Neurophos

The demand for new datacenters and AI compute is rapidly outpacing the planet's energy capacity. Digital solutions are hitting a power wall as we approach the physical limits of traditional silicon. Conquering this bottleneck isn't about bigger chips or more of them; it means rethinking the fundamental architecture. The industry's current path isn't going to meet the need, so we took a different approach. Instead of traditional electronic circuits, we use silicon photonics and an active, programmable metasurface to perform matrix multiplications at the speed of light. Our optical cells are 10,000x smaller than traditional photonic components, enabling unprecedented density. By using photonics instead of electricity, our chips become more efficient as they scale. This architecture will deliver up to 100 times the energy efficiency of existing solutions while significantly improving performance for large-scale AI inference.

Position Overview

This role will lead Neurophos’ O-band high-power coherent laser development programs. This is a senior position requiring deep technical expertise in semiconductor laser physics and the ability to drive complex photonic device development from architecture through productization. The Director will own end-to-end development of high-power coherent laser systems—including high-power laser + SOA (Semiconductor Optical Amplifier) configurations and single-wavelength injection-locked laser architectures—designed to meet output power, coherence, and spectral purity requirements for next-generation optical interconnect and AI compute platforms. The candidate must have hands-on experience driving III-V laser hardware development programs spanning multiple interdependent subsystems — laser die, SOA, driver electronics, coupling optics, thermal management, and module packaging. They must be skilled at planning around long foundry lead times, structuring work to minimize re-spins, and managing vendor relationships at the epi and process-spec levels. This role requires the technical depth to own critical path decisions and manage cascade impacts across subsystems.

Location

Austin, TX or San Jose, CA. Full-time onsite position.

Key Responsibilities

• Laser System Architecture & Development
  • Lead the design, development, and optimization of high-power coherent laser systems operating in the O-band (1260–1360 nm), targeting applications including data center interconnects, and optical AI inference engines.
    • Define and drive laser system configurations—including standalone high-power laser designs, integrated Laser + SOA topologies, and single-wavelength injection-locked master-slave architectures—to achieve high output power targets (e.g., >300 mW fiber-coupled) with high coherence, narrow linewidth, and low noise.
      • Own the locking-range analysis, injected-power-ratio optimization, and stability-margin assessment across temperature and aging conditions; define feedback and control requirements for maintaining lock, and validate that the electronics solutions meet system-level specs.
        • Understand and manage the coherence trade-offs introduced by SOA amplification — including phase noise contribution, gain saturation, ASE impact on OSNR, and back-reflection management — and design system architectures that meet output coherence and power requirements within these constraints.
          • Develop and validate device and system models to predict performance and guide design decisions through simulation platforms such as Lumerical, VPIphotonics, PICS3D, or equivalent.