Head of Education - Photonics & EM Simulation

Flexcompute Inc.•Watertown, MA

7d•Remote

About The Position

Flexcompute is seeking a Head of Education for Photonics & EM Simulation to promote Tidy3D to researchers, professors, and graduate students. This is a hands-on, high-travel, high-visibility role focused on presenting, teaching, and troubleshooting. The individual will give talks at conferences, run live simulation demos at university labs, teach workshops, and assist professors with simulation setup. The role starts in photonics and EM but will expand into multi-physics as the company grows. This is a remote position based in the US or Canada, requiring 30-50% travel. An office in the Boston area is available as a home base.

Requirements

PhD or Masters in photonics, optics, electrical engineering, or a closely related field.
Ability to explain the difference between TE and TM modes, design a directional coupler, and discuss dispersion engineering.
Experience with electromagnetic simulation in own research.
Fluent in Python: Ability to write and debug simulation scripts live, use Jupyter notebooks for research, and guide students through API calls.
Hands-on photonic simulation experience: Designed and simulated photonic devices (waveguides, resonators, couplers, gratings, or similar).
Experience with tools like Lumerical, COMSOL, Ansys HFSS, RSoft, Meep, or similar, and a working understanding of FDTD, FEM, or eigenmode solvers.
Natural presenter: Enjoys being in front of a room and can make complex topics accessible.
Energized by travel: Looks forward to conferences, campus visits, and lab tours.
Self-directed: Identifies opportunities, pitches abstracts, books travel, and shows up prepared, thriving with autonomy.

Nice To Haves

Experience in technical evangelism, developer relations, or academic outreach.
Existing relationships within university photonics/EE departments.
Background in silicon photonics, optical interconnects, or AI datacenter architecture.
Experience with Tidy3D.
Published research using electromagnetic simulation.
Experience creating video tutorials or technical content.
Familiarity with agentic AI, LLM-based tools, or AI-assisted design workflows.
Experience with multi-physics simulation (thermal, structural, RF).

Responsibilities

Present and Teach: Give talks, demos, and workshops at conferences (CLEO, Photonics West, IEEE Photonics, OFC, SPIE), universities, and company R&D groups.
Run hands-on sessions where researchers go from zero to a working Tidy3D simulation.
Visit university photonics, EE, and physics departments to demonstrate the platform to professors, postdocs, and grad students.
Present at seminars, lab meetings, and departmental colloquia.
Create Content: Write tutorials, example notebooks, and application notes (silicon photonics, optical interconnects, metasurfaces, waveguide design, etc.).
Record video walkthroughs and short-form demos.
Build course-ready materials that professors can drop into their syllabi.
Write blog posts, technical notes, and social content that drive awareness.
Build Community: Become the face of Tidy3D in the academic photonics community.
Grow a base of student users, faculty champions, and research group adopters.
Engage on forums, GitHub, social media - wherever users have questions.
Bring feedback from the field back to the product team: what's working, what's confusing, what's missing.