Applications Engineer, Photonics - Santa Barbara, CA

Role Summary
The Applications Engineer, Photonics supports the Photonics Division through a combination of laboratory-based application development and direct customer engagement. The role focuses on developing proof-of-concept demonstrations, providing technical sales support, and enabling customer adoption of photonic solutions. This position plays a critical role in securing design wins, benchmarking product performance, and translating customer requirements into real-world photonic system demonstrations.

Approximately 70% of the role is based on-site in Santa Barbara across lab and office activities, with the remaining time dedicated to customer visits, trade shows, and industry events.

Key Responsibilities

• Identify and support high-value applications in lasers, integrated photonics, and optical sensing.
• Capture customer technical requirements and map them to QCi photonic solutions.
• Design, build, and characterize hardware testbeds and system-level demonstrations.
• Benchmark QCi products against competing technologies and document performance advantages.
• Develop application notes, whitepapers, and technical documentation.
• Present technical results internally, to customers, and at industry forums.
• Support sales teams as the primary technical resource and participate in strategic customer engagements.
• Provide on-site customer support for system bring-up, integration, and troubleshooting.
• Maintain structured customer feedback through bug tracking and feature requests in coordination with engineering.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, Physics, Optics, Photonics, or related field.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience in photonics, semiconductor lasers, or optoelectronics.
• Proven experience supporting design wins in complex technical sales cycles.
• Strong understanding of semiconductor laser physics and integrated photonic components.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work independently in a cross-functional environment.