PIC Test & Characterization Engineer
Berkeley, CA, USA
Posted on Nov 5, 2026
About Opticore
Conventional chips are hitting a wall, and as AI inference demand grows, power consumption is becoming the single biggest constraint on deployment at scale.
Opticore is developing a photonic computing system that accelerates artificial intelligence workloads with exceptional speed and energy efficiency.
Responsibilities
- •Develop and execute test and characterization plans for photonic integrated circuits and individual photonic devices
- •Perform optical and electrical measurements of fabricated PICs and components
- •Characterize devices including waveguides, grating couplers, modulators, photodetectors, resonators, switches, and other active/passive photonic components
- •Build and improve automated test setups for wafer-level and packaged-device characterization
- •Develop Python-based measurement, data acquisition, analysis, and visualization workflows
- •Perform fiber-to-chip coupling, optical alignment, probing, and other hands-on photonic measurements
- •Analyze device performance including optical loss, coupling efficiency, bandwidth, extinction ratio, responsivity, insertion loss, and related parameters
- •Work closely with PIC designers to compare measured performance against simulations and design targets
- •Support debugging, root-cause analysis, and design iterations based on experimental results
- •Collaborate with fabrication, packaging, electrical, and systems teams to improve device and test performance
- •Help establish repeatable characterization methodologies and test infrastructure as the technology moves toward higher-volume experimentation and production
Required Qualifications
- •Experience testing and characterizing photonic integrated circuits or integrated optical devices
- •Strong understanding of silicon photonics, silicon nitride photonics, or related integrated photonics platforms
- •Hands-on experience with optical test equipment such as tunable lasers, optical power meters, OSA, VNAs, photodetectors, and optical/electrical probes
- •Experience with fiber-to-chip coupling, optical alignment, wafer probing, or packaged photonic devices
- •Strong Python skills for test automation, data acquisition, analysis, and visualization
- •Experience interpreting experimental data and connecting measured device behavior to underlying photonic designs and physics
- •Familiarity with PIC fabrication, layouts, tapeouts, PDKs, or device simulation is highly desirable
- •Ability to work hands-on in a laboratory environment and troubleshoot complex optical/electrical test setups
Preferred Qualifications
- •Experience with thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) or lithium-niobate photonics
- •Experience with silicon nitride (SiN) PICs
- •Experience with wafer-level automated testing or high-throughput photonic characterization
- •Experience characterizing high-speed electro-optic devices
- •Experience with Lumerical, COMSOL, or other photonic simulation tools
- •Experience designing PIC test structures or contributing to PIC layouts
- •Experience taking devices from design and fabrication through characterization and iteration
We're reviewing applications on a rolling basis and will reach out to shortlisted candidates.
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