Chief Engineer (Optical Comms)

Apolink Communcations•Palo Alto, CA

About The Position

Apolink is building the first-ever backward-compatible data relay constellation in low Earth orbit. By enabling efficient data aggregation and relay through our hybrid RF-optical inter-satellite link (ISL) architecture, we support scalable and resilient space infrastructure across commercial, federal, and defense applications. The Chief Engineer (Optical) is the company’s technical lead for optical communications across our LEO data relay constellation. They own the optical architecture, requirements, link design, and verification, and lead technical decisions with our optical terminal vendor. The vendor handles terminal manufacturing, while this role remains hands-on with analysis, integration, and testing. This is a sole-contributor leadership role.

Requirements

Direct, hands-on experience with LEO-LEO optical inter-satellite links: designing, building, or verifying crosslink terminals between spacecraft in low Earth orbit.
6+ years in free-space optical communications, coherent optical transport, or spaceborne photonics.
MS or PhD in optics, EE, or physics, or equivalent demonstrated depth.
Demonstrated experience directing vendor technical performance and NRE programs.
Capacity to exercise independent technical judgment as the sole optical authority and be accountable for it.

Nice To Haves

Direct experience with 400ZR, 800ZR, OpenZR+, or OIF coherent pluggables.
Flight heritage on an optical comms payload.

Responsibilities

Own optical ISL and feeder-link architecture: wavelength plan, modulation and coding, aperture and divergence sizing, data rate vs range tradespace.
Develop and maintain end-to-end optical link budgets, including coherent receiver sensitivity, PAT margin, platform jitter, point-ahead, Doppler, stray light, fade statistics, and BER against realistic FEC.
Author optical requirements and ICDs, and manage flowdown to the vendor and to internal bus, flight software, and ground teams.
Direct the vendor technically: down-select, diligence, SOW and NRE scoping, design review participation, and accountability for performance and schedule.
Adjudicate R&D direction with the vendor; what warrants NRE investment, what is technically unviable, what we buy versus co-develop.
May lead a ZR-800G-class coherent transceiver NRE with the optical terminal.
Maintain compliance with applicable standards, including CCSDS O3K and SDA OCT where relevant to federal programs.