Senior Display Hardware Engineer, Optics

General Motors•Sunnyvale, CA

9d•$125,200 - $192,700•Hybrid

About The Position

The Compute & Connectivity Hardware (CCH) team, part of GM’s Vehicle Software & Electronics Engineering (VSEE) organization, is responsible for developing the physical hardware foundation for GM’s software-defined vehicles. This includes compute, connectivity, networking, displays, and other electronic platforms that enable in-vehicle software, infotainment, ADAS, vehicle controls, and connected experiences. The team's work encompasses architecture, requirements, hardware and electronics design, embedded hardware, systems integration, validation, launch, and in-market performance. Engineers on this team collaborate across various disciplines, including software, systems, controls, cybersecurity, functional safety, vehicle engineering, suppliers, and manufacturing, to create reliable, production-ready hardware for GM's vehicle portfolio. The Senior Display Hardware Engineer, Optics will lead the development and maturation of next-generation optical film and light management technologies for automotive LCD and OLED displays. This role involves evaluating and optimizing optical stacks, including brightness enhancement films (BEF/DBEF), diffuser and prism films, polarizers, circular polarizers, and other advanced optical materials to enhance display brightness, efficiency, contrast, and outdoor readability. The engineer will establish optical characterization methodologies and validation processes for benchmarking emerging technologies and assessing their readiness for future automotive applications such as instrument clusters, center displays, and passenger infotainment systems. Collaboration with optical material suppliers, display manufacturers, and internal engineering teams will be key to driving the evaluation, validation, and integration of advanced optical solutions. The role also requires close work with Display Panel Engineers and Materials Engineers to ensure optical technologies meet performance, reliability, and manufacturability requirements before production program integration.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Optical Engineering, Physics, Display Engineering, Materials Science, or a related field.
5+ years of experience in display optics, optical film stack design, or light management systems.
Strong understanding of LCD and OLED optical architectures and light management technologies.
Experience with brightness enhancement films, polarizers, optical compensation films, and display optical performance metrics.
Proficiency with optical simulation, analysis, and characterization tools.
Experience using optical measurement equipment such as imaging colorimeters and spectroradiometers.
Understanding of automotive display performance and reliability requirements.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree in a related engineering or science discipline.
Experience working with display panel manufacturers or optical material suppliers.
Knowledge of Mini-LED backlight systems and associated optical stack design.
Experience with optical bonding and cover glass integration.
Experience qualifying optical materials for environmental, thermal, UV, and mechanical durability requirements.

Responsibilities

Evaluate and develop advanced optical film stack architectures for automotive LCD and OLED displays.
Select and optimize films such as DBEF, BEF, diffuser films, prism films, polarizers, and circular polarizers to meet system-level performance targets.
Perform optical simulations and modeling to assess brightness, contrast, viewing angle, color shift, reflectivity, and power efficiency.
Establish and execute optical measurement methodologies to characterize and validate new technologies.
Partner with display panel suppliers to evaluate optical performance under automotive environmental conditions.
Analyze optical performance data and correlate results to film stack design and material selection.
Investigate and resolve display optical issues, including non-uniformity, Mura, glare, reflections, and halo artifacts.
Collaborate with material suppliers to assess new optical films, coatings, and lamination technologies.
Support technology maturation, risk reduction, and transition of validated solutions into production programs.