Integrated Photonics Engineer

About the role

Acceler8 Talent is partnering with an early‑stage photonics company in Arlington, VA that is developing heterogeneous photonic integrated circuits for communications, sensing, quantum, and national‑security applications. Founded by leaders from DARPA and the commercial silicon‑photonics industry, the company builds optical microsystems that integrate multiple materials and functions on‑chip and seeks a hands‑on engineer to own the full PIC development cycle.

Responsibilities

• Design active and passive photonic devices
• Simulate device and circuit performance
• Create and review PIC layouts
• Work with foundry PDKs, DRCs, and tapeout flows
• Characterize fabricated devices
• Automate measurements and analysis with Python
• Use test results to improve subsequent designs
• Collaborate across fabrication, packaging, and electronics teams

Requirements

• Personally owned or led a PIC tapeout
• Taken devices from design through experimental measurement
• Hands‑on experience with Lumerical
• Experience with layout tools such as KLayout, GDSFactory, Virtuoso, or similar
• Worked with commercial foundries and PDKs
• Built or operated optical characterization setups
• Ability to work independently across the complete PIC workflow
• Experience with silicon, SiN, TFLN, III‑V, or other heterogeneous photonic platforms (relevant)
• High‑speed optical testing and photonic packaging experience is valuable but not essential

Pay

$150k–$220k base salary

Schedule

Five days per week, on‑site in Arlington, VA