Optical Engineer

The role

You will contribute to a payload portfolio including specialty-fiber lasers, photonic systems, and diffraction-limited telescopes. You will work through the full lifecycle of an optical system from initial analysis to on-orbit operation.

What you will do

• Own technical deliverables from problem definition through validated results.
• Build, align, calibrate, automate, and maintain custom free-space and fiber-optic test systems.
• Plan and execute experiments to characterize optical components and assemblies.
• Develop optical models, performance budgets, tolerance analyses, and data-processing tools.
• Design, specify, procure, and validate custom optics, optomechanical components, and test equipment.
• Develop and qualify repeatable optical fabrication and assembly processes for high volume production.
• Support environmental qualification, reliability testing, payload integration, and on-orbit commissioning.
• Troubleshoot anomalies and drive root-cause-based hardware or process changes.
• Communicate technical work through design reviews, test plans, reports, and specifications.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in optical engineering, physics, applied physics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experie
• 1+ years of relevant experience.
• Working knowledge of geometrical and physical optics.
• Familiarity with common free-space optical, fiber-optic, and optomechanical components.

Nice to have

• Hands-on experience building, aligning, testing, or troubleshooting an optical setup
• Ability to navigate optical-vendor catalogs and select appropriate commercial components
• Experience using Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW, or a similar environment
• Strong technical communication skills
• Familiarity with optical design or analysis tools such as OpticStudio, CODE V, FRED, LightTools, Lumerical, or equivalent software
• Experience with detectors or focal-plane arrays, quantitative image processing, radiometry, optical calibration, or noise analysis
• Experience with precision optomechanics, CAD, optical mechanisms, lasers, integrated photonics, or specialty fibers
• Exposure to manufacturing-process development, measurement uncertainty, environmental testing, contamination control, or the failure modes of hardware in space environments
• Curiosity, sound engineering judgment, and a demonstrated ability to make independent progress on unfamiliar technical problems

Benefits

• Paid time off
• Medical/dental/vision coverage
• Life insurance
• Paid parental leave
• Many other perks

Before you apply

• Must be a U.S. person as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.15 or otherwise eligible for a federally issued export control license.

About the company

K2 is building the largest and highest-power satellites ever flown for missions from LEO to deep space. The company is mass-producing high-power satellite platforms and is a high-growth Series D-funded company.