Lightmatter is leading the revolution in AI data center infrastructure, enabling the next giant leaps in human progress. The company invented the world’s first 3D-stacked photonics engine, Passage™, capable of connecting thousands to millions of processors at the speed of light in extreme-scale data centers for the most advanced AI and HPC workloads.
Lightmatter raised $400 million in its Series D round, reaching a valuation of $4.4 billion. We will continue to accelerate the development of data center photonics and grow every department at Lightmatter!
If you're passionate about tackling complex challenges, making an impact, and being an expert in your craft, join our team of brilliant scientists, engineers, and accomplished industry leaders.
Lightmatter is (re)inventing the future of computing with light!
About this job
This team is designing active and passive Silicon Photonics devices and systems that are at the frontier of the technology and core to Lightmatter products. This job will require diving deep into the physics and working principles of all kinds of device designs, creating test plans, and layouts, analyzing data and experiments and creating models.
Responsibilities:
- Design high-performance passive and active silicon photonics devices with commercial softwares such as Lumerical, Tidy3D, Cadence
- Develop automated inverse design of silicon photonic components.
- Develop control algorithms for photonics subsystems for real-world use cases
- Assess fabrication variability and operational performance of Si photonic components
- Develop and implement testing and analysis methodology for new and existing silicon photonics devices, including design-for-test, design-for-manufacturing, and design-of-experiments.
- Design and execute model creation for silicon photonics chips and subsystems based on measurement data and close the loop with design and simulations.
Requirements:
- Currently enrolled in a PhD program, specializing in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Photonics, or related fields.
- Good understanding of Silicon Photonics or General Photonics
- Experience in electro-optic design of silicon photonics components
- Demonstrate problem-solving skills in problems that do not have obvious solutions
- Exposure to developing and implementing automated design and analysis using Python scripting
- Data-driven and analytical; translates numbers into actionable strategies
- Process-oriented and programmatic: builds structure through processes
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Interest in Photonics Design
- Willingness and curiosity to learn from an exciting team!
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in design of high speed transceiver systems
- Work with foundries
- Exposure to designing PDK Components
Our internship hourly rates are a standard pay determined based on the position and your location, year in school, degree, and experience.
- Comprehensive Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
- Retirement Savings Matching Program
- Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
- Generous Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
- Paid Family Leave
- Short Term & Long Term Disability
- Training & Development
- Commuter Benefits
- Flexible, hybrid workplace model
- Equity grants (applicable to full-time employees)
Benefits eligibility may vary depending on your employment status and location. Lightmatter recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, veteran status, and other protected status as required by applicable law.
Export Control
Candidates should have capacity to comply with the federally mandated requirements of U.S. export control laws.
Skills Required
- Currently enrolled in a PhD program specializing in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Photonics, or a related field
- Good understanding of silicon photonics or general photonics
- Experience in electro-optic design of silicon photonics components
- Problem-solving skills for complex problems without obvious solutions
- Exposure to automated design and analysis using Python scripting
- Data-driven and analytical approach with ability to translate numbers into actionable strategies
- Process-oriented and programmatic approach
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Interest in photonics design
- Willingness and curiosity to learn
- Experience designing high-speed transceiver systems
- Experience working with foundries
- Exposure to designing PDK components
Lightmatter Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Lightmatter and has not been reviewed or approved by Lightmatter.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is considered competitive for specialized photonics and AI‑hardware roles, with posted ranges and third‑party totals aligning to strong market levels. Compensation for niche roles is framed as consistent with top‑tier hardware/photonics expectations.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare is described as comprehensive, covering medical, dental, and vision in current postings. Additional protections like life insurance and disability are also called out.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants for full‑time employees are commonly included alongside base pay. Some postings also mention performance‑based equity components.
Lightmatter Insights
What We Do
Lightmatter is a startup photonics company that has pioneered a new paradigm in processor chip architecture that uses photons instead of electrons. Now the leader in the photonic AI compute “space race,” this new class of high performance semiconductors is the foundation of Lightmatter’s mission to enable the growth of computing, reduce harmful emissions associated with this growth, and democratize computing for all. Lightmatter's technology accelerates critical operations in deep neural networks, using an array of programmable photonic elements fabricated alongside transistors in conventional computer chip fabrication processes. Our close-knit team of engineers has created an integrated photonics chip and ultra-high performance interconnect that is faster, more efficient, and cooler than anything else on earth (or anything ever experienced before) to power the next giant leaps in human progress.
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