Lead Optical Systems Engineer

Our client is an innovative and fast-growing technology company developing advanced optical communication and photonics-based systems for demanding applications.

As part of its growth and the strengthening of its optical engineering capabilities, we are looking for a Lead Optical Systems Engineer.

Reporting to the R&D and Engineering teams, you will take ownership of the optical discipline across the company’s products. You will work across the full development lifecycle of optical systems: from architecture and modelling through to integration, alignment, characterisation and validation on dedicated test benches.

You will join an already structured technical environment, with optical designs, analyses, error budgets and operating test benches under configuration control. Working closely with a Senior Optical Architect, who will act as a technical authority and mentor, you will take operational and technical ownership of the discipline, while ensuring that optical knowledge, methods and best practices are documented and sustained across the organisation.

• System Architecture & Trade-offs: Participate in system-level analyses and architecture trade-offs, including link and radiometric budgets, requirements flow-down to optical subsystems, and arbitration between optical, mechanical, thermal, electrical, mass and cost constraints.

• Optical Design: Design optical trains and produce complete optical prescriptions suitable for manufacturing or procurement, including materials, coatings, tolerances, expected performance and acceptance criteria.

• Modelling & Simulation: Build and run optical models using ray-tracing software to assess image and beam quality, transmission, efficiency, stray light, polarisation and tolerance sensitivity.

• First-Principles Modelling: Develop and maintain analytical models to validate numerical simulations, covering beam propagation, diffraction, optical coupling, radiometry and optical-link performance.

• Optical Error Budgets: Define, maintain and defend optical error budgets during design reviews, ensuring consistency between predicted performance, available margins and measured results.

• Integration & Test: Lead the transition from design to hardware, including component and supplier selection, definition of assembly and alignment procedures, and follow-up of Assembly, Integration & Test (AIT) and characterisation campaigns.

• Optical Ground Support Equipment: Define, specify and procure the optical ground support equipment, test benches and metrology tools required to demonstrate product compliance, as well as the associated test strategy.

• Model-to-Test Correlation: Compare predicted and measured performance, analyse discrepancies, identify root causes and feed findings back into optical models and error budgets.

• Supplier Management: Lead technical interactions with optics manufacturers, coating suppliers, integration partners and laboratories, including specifications, RFQs, design reviews, acceptance criteria and incoming inspection.

• Technical Leadership: Help develop the company’s optical capability by mentoring engineers and interns, formalising methods and ensuring the technical documentation and optical baseline remain robust, traceable and transferable.