Senior Principal Photonics Test Engineer

The role

The Senior Principal Photonics Test Engineer will serve as the technical authority for photonics test engineering. This person will define end-to-end test architectures and drive advanced test development for silicon photonics devices, subsystems, and optical modules.

What you will do

• Define and own the end-to-end test architecture and test roadmap.
• Lead the development of advanced wafer probe and package-level test solutions.
• Architect and implement automated test flows for engineering characterization, validation, and production.
• Design, develop, and implement optical test plans and procedures for co-packaged optics modules.
• Debug and resolve yield issues and critical technical challenges.
• Develop and drive the hardware and software roadmap for next-generation optical test systems.
• Collaborate across cross-functional organizations.
• Define and implement test and yield analytics frameworks.
• Provide deep technical input in Design-for-Test and product development reviews.
• Define test specifications, acceptance criteria, and pass/fail limits.

Required qualifications

• MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Optics, Physics, Semiconductor Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in optical testing, photonic device characterization, or optical transceiver module test.
• Strong understanding of silicon photonics devices, optical probing and fiber coupling, Electro-Optical (EO) characterization, high-speed optical testing and BER measurement.
• Proven experience leading development of wafer-level and package-level optical test systems.
• Programming skills in Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW, or C/C++ for test automation.
• Knowledge of optical communication standards (IEEE 802.3, OIF-CEI, CMIS).
• Familiarity with statistical analysis methods and data visualization tools.
• Strong experience debugging yield issues and complex system-level problems.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills.

Nice to have

• Experience specifically with co-packaged optics or on-board optics architectures.
• Knowledge of 2.5D/3D packaging technologies (interposers, chiplets, UCIe etc.).
• Experience with external laser source (ELS) integration and characterization.
• Experience with ATE platforms and custom photonics test setups.
• Experience in transitioning test processes from lab/prototype to high-volume manufacturing (HVM)

Benefits

• discretionary bonus
• incentives
• benefits

About the company

Astera Labs (NASDAQ: ALAB) provides rack-scale AI infrastructure through purpose-built connectivity solutions. The company's Intelligent Connectivity Platform integrates semiconductor-based technologies with the COSMOS software suite.