Principal Electro-Optical/Adaptive Optics Engineer, Directed Energy

Xcimer Energy•Denver, CO

4d•Onsite

About The Position

Xcimer Energy is seeking a Principal Electro-Optical/Adaptive Optics Engineer to be the adaptive optics and wavefront control authority for a directed-energy laser demonstrator. This role involves owning adaptive optics requirements, performance budgets, and implementation plans. The position serves as a primary technical interface for negotiating requirements, reviewing partner designs, and contributing to a shared development effort. This role also supports Xcimer's central goal of commercial fusion by feeding beam control lessons from the Directed Energy program into fusion beamlines. Additionally, the role involves building the adaptive optics group by setting technical standards, development practices, mentoring engineers and scientists, and undertaking technology development that extends beyond single programs. The company emphasizes rapid progress with real hardware, requiring initial concepts and layouts before commitment and quick, inexpensive experiments to test ideas. The ideal candidate will apply technical expertise, problem-solving skills, and dedication to quality to impact the future of energy and national security.

Requirements

Advanced degree in optics, physics, electrical engineering, or a closely related field.
8+ years of optical science/engineering experience.
5+ years in adaptive optics, wavefront sensing and control, directed energy, or closely related high-speed optical/laser control systems.
Track record of delivering adaptive optics or beam control systems in industry, national labs, or observatories.
Demonstrated ownership of adaptive optics requirements and performance budgets on a real program, including the wavefront error budget and its allocation across subsystems.
Knowledge of laser beam propagation through atmospheric turbulence, including turbulence characterization and its consequences for correction.
Demonstrated use of a wave-optics propagation code for system performance prediction.
Hands-on working knowledge of deformable mirrors, wavefront sensors, and high-bandwidth feedback control.
Ability to set and audit closed-loop control requirements: bandwidth, latency, sampling, reconstructor approach, and disturbance rejection.
Experience working directly with external vendors or partner organizations on custom optical and electro-optical systems, including specification negotiation and design reviews.
Experience directing the technical work of other engineers, scientists, or technicians through a substantial task.
Experience with high-energy or high-intensity laser systems and the constraints they place on optics, including damage threshold and thermal management.
Advanced verbal and written communication skills, including technical documentation, requirements definition, and presentation to internal and external audiences.
Willingness to travel to partner facilities and test sites.
Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Nice To Haves

Experience on directed energy programs, including high-energy laser beam control, target tracking, or field test campaigns.
Experience delivering a custom adaptive optics system from concept through commissioning.
Familiarity with the pointing and tracking side of beam control and how it hands off to wavefront correction.
Experience with beacon and reference-wave strategies.
Familiarity with real-time software, FPGA-based control, or low-latency computing architectures.
Experience with predictive or optimal control, system identification, or reconstructor optimization applied to a real loop.
Experience with adaptive optics or wavefront correction on large-aperture, high-energy pulsed beamlines.
Experience with wavefront diagnostics beyond Shack-Hartmann sensing.
Experience with pulsed laser systems and the diagnostics used to characterize them.
Experience with high-energy optics in the deep UV, including laser-induced damage, coating specification, and contamination control.
Experience with opto-mechanical jitter analysis, vibration isolation, and STOP analysis.
Prior experience on DoD or other government-funded programs, including proposal and review cycles.
Active or prior U.S. DoD personnel security clearance, or eligibility to obtain one.
Experience with intellectual property development, including invention disclosures and patents.
Experience mentoring engineers or leading technical teams, and building out a technical discipline within an organization.
Experience in multidisciplinary research laser facilities, such as national laboratories.
Experience in laboratory, field, and operational environments that demand high reliability and uptime.
Experience writing scientific papers or program technical reports.

Responsibilities

Own adaptive optics and wavefront control requirements for the Directed Energy program, from top-level objectives down to component and interface specifications.
Build and maintain the end-to-end performance model, including propagation through atmospheric turbulence and thermal blooming, wave-optics prediction of far-field irradiance, and a wavefront error budget.
Set requirements for deformable mirrors, wavefront sensors, reconstructors, and the real-time control loop, including bandwidth, latency, and disturbance rejection budgets.
Lead trade studies and architecture decisions for correction topology, actuator count, sensing approach, control rates, and system limitations.
Ensure designs meet performance, reliability, and operability requirements, and identify technical risks with mitigation plans.
Translate lessons learned and developments from Directed Energy beam control into beam control goals and requirements for Xcimer’s fusion program.
Act as a primary technical interface to external program partners on adaptive optics and beam control, negotiating interfaces and requirements.
Own the technical side of adaptive optics procurements and development subcontracts, including statements of work, specification negotiation, and acceptance criteria.
Plan and defend the resources needed for the adaptive optics scope, including scope, schedule, staffing, and build-versus-buy decisions.
Act as the primary technical interface for resolving performance, schedule, and integration issues with suppliers.
Communicate complex beam control trades clearly to diverse audiences.
Define proof-of-concept and risk-reduction experiments, and direct their execution and interpretation.
Define and review laboratory and in-situ test plans to validate performance and closed-loop operation.
Provide guidance and best practices for assembly, integration, and test of beam control hardware.
Work with control system engineers to integrate adaptive optics within the larger laser control system.
Support commissioning activities and the transition to reliable operations.
Author and defend artifacts in Xcimer’s gated design review process, and serve as a reviewer on others’ packages.
Establish technical standards, documentation practices, and development workflows for the adaptive optics group.
Mentor engineers and scientists working on adaptive optics and wavefront control.
Participate in hiring and onboarding as the group grows.
Take on technology development that outlives any single program.