CAD/PDK Engineer

OpenLight Photonics•Santa Clara, CA

7d•$130,000 - $230,000•Hybrid

About The Position

This is a software and EDA role at the center of a Silicon Photonics company. If you've worked with CAD or EDA tooling, done mask layout, or verification infrastructure in any semiconductor domain — or you're a strong Python engineer who wants to work close to silicon — we'd like to talk. Familiarity, or a strong interest, with optics or photonics preferred. Working at the hub of the wheel that is OpenLight’s technology, you will build and maintain the software that turns photonic chip designs into manufacturable mask data. As a key member of OpenLight's Design Enablement team, you'll own the automation behind our process design kit (PDK), our mask build flows, and our physical verification infrastructure — the tooling that we rely on every day.

Requirements

B.S. or M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Applied Physics, or a related discipline — or equivalent practical experience
Strong Python skills and solid software engineering fundamentals
Experience with version control, CI/CD pipelines, and Agile development practices
Exposure to EDA tool flows or their scripting interfaces — for example SKILL, Tcl, Synopsys ICV, KLayout, IPKISS, or GDSFactory — or a demonstrated ability to pick up domain tooling quickly
Strong problem solving, communication, organizational, and interpersonal skills

Nice To Haves

Familiarity, or a strong interest, with optics or photonics preferred.

Responsibilities

Develop and maintain automated mask build workflows that assemble PIC designs into GDS artwork, reproducibly and on schedule
Build and release the OpenLight PDK: device libraries, parameterized cells, compact models, and symbol/schematic views across our EDA platforms
Own physical verification infrastructure
Stand up CI/CD pipelines, regression suites, and automated QA to maintain a robust PDK and mask release process
Partner with EDA vendors to bring up and validate our PDK on their platforms
Work alongside process engineers, device designers, and PIC Architects to turn manual, error-prone steps into automated workflows
Monitor for quality escapes, perform root cause analysis, and drive the improvements that prevent recurrence