Optical Modeling and Simulation Engineer (copy)
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 23, 2026. First seen by Alion on Oct 19, 2026. Furientis scores A on the Alion truth index.
About the Team
The Seeker Team builds the eyes and the targeting logic of our weapon system: a low-cost, mass-producible, multimodal missile seeker that leans on commercial supply chains where they outperform, and vertically integrates wherever possible. On a modern missile, the seeker is 40 to 60% of unit cost and often drives overly long delivery cycles; accordingly, the seeker team is at the tip of the spear for delivering capability to our customers and value to the taxpayer.
Seeker design has exactly two real constraints: physics and mission. Nothing else is a show-stopper, only an obstacle to overcome. We are a small, deeply technical team that drives capability through ingenuity and bias for action and ships hardware that flies. This is a wear-many-hats environment where you must be comfortable "building the airplane in flight" and stepping well outside your comfort zone; a narrowly scoped role with clean handoffs is not what this team offers.
This is an AI-native team. Through fluent use of cutting-edge agentic coding tools, one engineer here consistently out-delivers a much larger conventional team. You will have opinions about where these tools help and where they do not, provide governance input, and build out an AI-centric workflow from day one.
About the Role
You own every pulsed laser transmitter the seeker flies, bought or built. Near term, that means buying intelligently: surveying the global supply base for Q-switched Er:glass and seeded MOPA transmitters, characterizing what actually arrives, and integrating it behind a swap-ready interface. Then it means building our own: Q-switched Er:glass lasers designed, assembled, and tested in-house, and seeded MOPA amplifier chains built around off-the-shelf seed lasers. The coherent systems engineer owns the channel and the link budget and is your customer for delivered pulse performance; everything inside the transmitter (gain, Q-switch, cavity, amplifier, pump, thermal, lifetime) is yours, from first bench device through rate production. You are also the program's laser safety authority.
What You'll Do
Own the laser transmitter specification and ICD with the coherent systems engineer: pulse energy, width, repetition rate, jitter, divergence and M², SWaP, and environment, derived from the channel link budgets, defended with your own models.
Near term (buy): survey and downselect off-the-shelf Er:glass microchip modules, seeded MOPA transmitters, and seed lasers from the global supply base, where expediency and cost lead; own the vendor technical relationships.
Near term (prove): characterize every bought unit at device level (energy over temperature, repetition-rate derating, beam quality, pulse jitter, shot life, lot-to-lot variance) and write the acceptance test no datasheet passes on its own.
Near term (integrate): trigger and synchronization, the drive-electronics interface (with Electronics & Power), thermal path, and the swap-ready optical/mechanical/electrical interface, so the production source can change without redesigning the seeker.
In-house build: design and build the Q-switched Er:glass laser, covering Er/Yb glass selection, pump-diode and thermal design, passive (Co:spinel) or active Q-switching, cavity and output coupler, fluence versus laser-damage budget, and run it from first light to a qualified, producible unit.
In-house build: design and build the seeded MOPA amplifier chain around the off-the-shelf seed, covering gain staging and energy extraction, ASE and parasitic-lasing control, SBS/SRS headroom, isolation, and pulsed pumping.
Package both laser families for the flight environment (shock, vibration, temperature) and own lifetime, burn-in, and acceptance testing into rate production with Manufacturing and Test Systems.
Own the pulsed-laser lab and its craft: alignment and bonding fixtures, metrology, and the build procedures technicians will run at rate.
Own laser safety program-wide: classification, NOHD analysis, range paperwork, and the ANSI Z136.1 program, as Laser Safety Officer.
Skills We're Hiring For
B.S. in Optics, Photonics, Physics, or Electrical Engineering; M.S. or Ph.D. preferred.
7+ years designing and building pulsed solid-state lasers that shipped or flew: diode-pumped, Q-switched systems you personally took from model to bench hardware to measured performance.
Resonator and Q-switch design from first principles: rate equations, cavity stability and mode control, passive and active Q-switching, output-coupler and fluence trades against coating and material damage thresholds.
Diode pumping done for real: pump wavelength control over temperature, thermal lensing and fracture limits (glass gain media especially), diode lifetime and derating, and the drive electronics they demand.
Amplifier design: seeded MOPA chains in fiber and/or bulk, covering stored-energy extraction, ASE and parasitic-lasing suppression, SBS/SRS management, linewidth control, and isolation.
Laser modeling fluency (e.g., LASCAD, ASLD, RP Fiber Power, Zemax, plus your own Python rate-equation models) with a track record of models matching measured hardware.
Bench characterization craft: pulse energy and temporal shape, M² and divergence, spectrum and linewidth, jitter, over temperature and life, with data you would defend in a design review.
Packaging pulsed lasers for harsh environments: bonded and aligned assemblies that hold spec through shock, vibration, and temperature.
Laser safety as an owner, not a user: ANSI Z136.1, classification and NOHD analysis, range operations; prior Laser Safety Officer duty or the depth to take it on.
Daily use of agentic coding tools (Claude Code or similar) to multiply your output, with examples of what you've shipped.
Bonus Points For
Er:glass / eye-safe 1.5 µm lasers in a rangefinder, designator, or ladar product.
Microchip laser design or manufacture, including bonded passive-Q-switch assemblies.
High-g or munition-class laser packaging; direct missile or seeker program experience.
Taking a laser from prototype to volume production: yield, burn-in, and acceptance at rate.
Working knowledge of the gain-media, Q-switch crystal, coating, and pump-diode supply base.