Optical Design Senior Engineer - Early Career

Seagate Technology • Bloomington, MN

1d • Onsite

About The Position

Our technology development group designs Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) heads for future products. We design integrated optics that delivers light from a laser to a Near-Field Transducer (NFT), and design the plasmonic NFT that focuses the laser light down to a spot size 10’s of nanometers in diameter (10x smaller than the diffraction limit). We also design the magnetic circuit that applies a >2 Tesla, GHz magnetic field within nanometers of the NFT’s optical spot. This “leading-edge photonic and magnetic integration” designed by our group won the 2026 SPIE Prism Award in the Optical Materials and Components category. As an Optical Design Senior Engineer, you will help identify and invent concepts that will improve HAMR recording head performance, optimize NFT designs to improve performance and reliability, work closely with other designers and the wafer process team to build your ideas into real devices, which will require evaluating design/process tradeoffs and optimizations, work with other designers and the test team to characterize the new devices, which will require utilizing standard tests and developing novel test methodologies, and use analytical tools, numerical models and experimental data to improve HAMR understanding and then communicate this new understanding to other teams, such as the product, wafer processing and test teams.

Requirements

• 5 years of applicable academic or industry experience
• Experience with near-field optics, plasmonics, waveguide optics and device physics
• Expertise in integrated optical component design and analysis
• Experience with optical modeling design tools (e.g. Comsol, Lumerical, RSoft, FDTD)
• Ability to work well within a team to solve world-class problems
• Ability to adapt quickly to a fast-moving industry

Nice To Haves

• Experience in failure analysis, data analysis, wafer processing techniques, image analysis, and six sigma tools (e.g. JMP, Python) are a plus
• PhD in Engineering, Physics, or Electrical Engineering

Responsibilities

• Help identify and invent concepts that will improve HAMR recording head performance
• Optimize NFT designs to improve performance and reliability
• Work closely with other designers and the wafer process team to build your ideas into real devices, which will require evaluating design/process tradeoffs and optimizations
• Work with other designers and the test team to characterize the new devices, which will require utilizing standard tests and developing novel test methodologies
• Use analytical tools, numerical models and experimental data to improve HAMR understanding and then communicate this new understanding to other teams, such as the product, wafer processing and test teams

Benefits

• Eligibility to participate in discretionary bonus program
• Medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Life insurance
• Short-term disability
• Long-term disability
• 401(k)
• Employee stock purchase plan
• Health savings account
• Dependent care
• Healthcare spending accounts
• Paid time off, including 12 holidays
• Flexible time off provided pursuant to Seagate policy
• A minimum of 48 hours of paid sick leave
• 16 weeks of paid parental leave

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees