Photonic IC Design Engineer, Design Automation & Modeling

K2 Space•Seattle, WA

17h•$130,000 - $200,000

About The Position

K2 is building high-power satellite platforms for missions across multiple orbits, from low Earth orbit to deep space. Its photonics team develops optical and photonic payloads for spacecraft that K2 designs and operates. The Photonic IC Design Engineer focused on design automation and modeling will own the team's photonic design flow, developing software that turns requirements into fabrication-ready, design-rule-clean layouts with measured performance that matches simulation. The flow includes inverse and AI-guided design, parametric layout generation, fabrication-aware models, and automated verification. The engineer will build tools, component libraries, and models used for design and for calibration and control of tunable circuits, collaborating with the test and automation team to support design-for-test and incorporate measurement data into models. The role also owns device blocks on product photonic integrated circuit tapeouts and takes them from design through lab measurement. As a founding photonics team member, the engineer will help establish the team's tools and design practices.

Requirements

PhD or MS in electrical engineering, optics, physics, computer science, or a related field, or a bachelor's degree with equivalent experience.
Experience building inverse-design or other computational-design tools that produced fabricated, measured devices on commercial integrated photonics foundry platforms.
Strong software engineering skills, including Python, autodiff frameworks, version control, and maintainable shared code.
Experience with electromagnetic simulation using FDTD, FEM, or RCWA.
Hands-on lab characterization correlated to simulation.

Nice To Haves

Machine learning or agentic AI applied to engineering design.
Control systems, calibration, or system identification for tunable photonic circuits.
Photonic layout and PDK tooling such as gdsfactory, KLayout, or Cadence.
Laser or VCSEL design and modeling.
3D heterogeneous integration or co-packaged optics.
Contributions to open-source electromagnetic or design tools such as Meep.

Responsibilities

Own the photonic design automation flow, including parametric layout generation, simulation orchestration, design-space exploration, and automated DRC/LVS and sign-off across integrated photonics foundry platforms.
Build and maintain fabrication-aware inverse-design tools, including topology optimization in JAX or PyTorch, lithography models, and robustness to process variation.
Integrate agentic and AI-guided tools into design-space exploration, layout generation, optimization, and data analysis.
Own device and circuit blocks on product PICs from specification through tapeout and characterization.
Partner with the photonics test and automation team to incorporate design-for-test, define measurement plans and metrics, and connect the design flow to the shared test-data pipeline.
Characterize devices in the lab and on automated test stations; assess simulation-to-measurement error and use results to update model calibrations, design rules, and the design flow.
Maintain pcells and compact models for the component library and create regression tests to catch problems caused by flow or PDK changes.
Extend models into calibration and control for tunable PICs, including thermal tuning, resonator locking, and modulator bias; use test-station calibration data to update models and algorithms.
Develop behavioral and physical models of photonic circuits, links, lasers, and gain media, and support system co-design with electronics and ASIC teams.
Make the flow usable by the team through documentation, reviews, and mentoring.