Director, Photonics Hardware Validation

Lightmatter•Mountain View, CA

4d•$261,000 - $300,000•Hybrid

About The Position

In this pivotal role within Silicon Engineering, you will own the end-to-end post-silicon validation strategy and execution across optical, electrical, and system level. You will collaborate directly with Silicon Design, Laser, Packaging, Software, and Supply Chain leadership to architect scalable lab infrastructure, drive automated testing frameworks, and ensure our products meet world-class reliability standards for hyperscale AI data centers.

Requirements

BS, MS, or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Photonics, Physics, or a related technical field.
12+ years of semiconductor or hardware validation experience, with significant exposure to optical/photonics link-level products.
Strong technical background in laser, optics, or silicon photonics architecture and characterization.
5+ years of experience developing test content, automation infrastructure, and scripting in Python or C++.
Proven leadership track record managing cross-functional engineering teams in a fast-paced environment working on transceivers or link-level products.
Solid understanding of industry standard requirements (IEEE, MSA, OIF) and product validation through corner testing (temperature, voltage, and process matrices), including defining validation plans and generating validation reports.
Demonstrated ability to establish process improvements, test methodologies, and data analysis workflows.

Nice To Haves

Excellent technical leadership, communication, and cross-functional project management skills.
Proven track record of successfully leading multiple link-level products through validation and high-volume production release.
Experience scaling engineering teams through hypergrowth, establishing career development frameworks, and fostering a high-performance environment.
Demonstrated capability to align executive stakeholders on technical roadmaps, resource trade-offs, and risk mitigation strategies.

Responsibilities

Scale the product validation team by recruiting, mentoring, and developing multi-disciplinary talent across optical, electrical, software, and automation domains.
Drive silicon and platform validation strategies, requirements, and execution plans for our optical interconnect platform.
Architect and define comprehensive, at-scale validation environments, test frameworks, automated test suites, and telemetry data collection workflows.
Analyze silicon and system architecture to identify integration risks, design gaps, and marginality issues requiring rigorous corner validation.
Oversee the execution of validation plans, leading technical triage and root-cause debug for hardware, firmware, and system-level issues.
Partner closely with Silicon, Packaging, Hardware, and Software teams to align validation coverage with design specifications and system requirements.
Influence pre-silicon design and simulation milestones to ensure feature completeness, advocating for validation hooks, telemetry sensors, and diagnostic monitors on-chip and on reference platforms.
Drive hardware and software automation initiatives to enhance testing throughput, repeatability, and data analytics capabilities across validation labs.