Optical Product Development Engineer — Spectroscopy Instruments

LOCATION: This is a fully onsite position based at our Madison, WI site. Unfortunately, relocation assistance is NOT provided.  

Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future. 
Must be able to pass a comprehensive background check, which includes a drug screen. 
 

As part of the Thermo Fisher Scientific team, you’ll discover meaningful work that makes a positive impact on a global scale. Join our colleagues in bringing our Mission to life every day to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer. We provide our teams with the resources needed to achieve individual career goals while advancing solutions to some of the world’s toughest challenges, like protecting the environment, making sure our food is safe or helping find cures for cancer.

The Analytical Instruments Group (AIG) at Thermo Fisher Scientific provides a broad portfolio of instruments, software, and services that support a wide range of laboratory, production, and field applications. Our solutions are used by customers across pharmaceutical, biotechnology, academic, government, environmental, and industrial markets to advance research, improve productivity, and drive innovation. At the Madison, Wisconsin site, our teams design and manufacture advanced spectroscopy instrumentation used by scientists around the world for research, materials science, energy, and industrial applications.

We are seeking a hands-on Optical Product Development Engineer to help design, build, test, and improve optical systems for FTIR, NIR, and Raman spectroscopy instruments.

This role is ideal for an engineer with a strong foundation in optics who enjoys working in the lab, building prototypes, troubleshooting real hardware, and collaborating across disciplines to turn optical concepts into manufacturable products. The successful candidate should bring a solid technical foundation, hands-on engineering mindset, and curiosity to continue developing advanced optical design skills while contributing directly to product development.

This is a product-focused role, not a purely theoretical modeling role. The engineer will work across optical design, prototyping, alignment, testing, system integration, and transfer to manufacturing.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop optical subsystems for spectroscopy instruments, including illumination, collection, imaging, sensing, laser, fiber-coupled, or interferometric optical systems
• Translate product and performance requirements into practical optical designs, prototypes, and testable hardware
• Build, align, and evaluate optical prototypes in the lab
• Use optical modeling and simulation tools such as Zemax, Code V, LightTools, or similar tools to support design decisions
• Perform optical testing, data analysis, and performance characterization
• Troubleshoot optical, mechanical, electrical, and system-level issues during development and production
• Collaborate closely with mechanical, electrical, software, firmware, systems, manufacturing, and service teams
• Support optical tolerance analysis, error budgeting, alignment strategies, and performance optimization
• Develop and execute test plans to verify optical and instrument-level performance
• Iterate designs based on experimental data, manufacturability, reliability, cost, and performance tradeoffs
• Support design transfer to manufacturing, including alignment procedures, test methods, yield improvement, and root-cause analysis
• Work with vendors and suppliers on optical components, coatings, assemblies, and subsystems
• Contribute to design reviews, technical documentation, and product development milestones
• Mentor junior engineers or technicians as appropriate

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree  plus 5 years of experience, or Master’s degree plus 3 years experience in Optical Engineering, Physics, Applied Physics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related technical discipline
• Experience building, aligning, testing, or troubleshooting optical systems in a laboratory or product development environment
• Ability to analyze experimental data and use results to improve hardware performance
• Familiarity with optical design or simulation tools such as Zemax, Code V, LightTools, FRED, or similar tools
• Comfortable working with laboratory equipment such as optical benches, alignment tools, power meters, spectrometers, interferometers, cameras, detectors, oscilloscopes, or data acquisition systems
• Practical problem-solving mindset with the ability to debug complex hardware and system-level issues
• Ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams across optical, mechanical, electrical, software, manufacturing, and quality disciplines
• Programming or scripting experience in Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW, or similar tools for data analysis, automation, or modeling
• Strong communication skills and ability to document designs, test results, trade studies, and technical decisions

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong foundation in optical principles, including geometrical optics, diffraction, polarization, imaging, radiometry, and basic wave optics
• Experience developing optical systems for commercial instruments, analytical instruments, medical devices, life science tools, aerospace systems, defense systems, or other complex hardware products
• Experience with spectroscopy systems such as FTIR, NIR, Raman, UV-Vis, fluorescence, or related optical measurement technologies
• Understanding of opto-mechanical design, alignment sensitivity, thermal effects, vibration, stray light, and optical contamination
• Familiarity with optical tolerancing, metrology, fabrication processes, coatings, and supplier capabilities
• Experience supporting manufacturing transfer, production troubleshooting, yield improvement, or service investigations
• Interest in using AI, machine learning, or generative AI tools to improve data analysis, automation, modeling, or engineering productivity

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate has a solid optics foundation and enjoys turning ideas into working hardware. They are comfortable moving between analysis, simulation, hands-on lab work, prototype builds, data analysis, and cross-functional problem solving. They are curious, practical, and eager to grow into a stronger optical designer while helping develop real products that can be manufactured, tested, and supported in the field.