{"id":4036470,"url":"https://alion.io/job/star-catcher-optical-engineer-eo-payloads-imaging-optics","title":"Optical Engineer- EO Payloads & Imaging Optics","company":{"id":1906176,"name":"Star Catcher","domain":"star-catcher.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/star-catcher","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"Semiconductors","role_family":"Semiconductors","seniority":"middle","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Jacksonville, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":3,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"SLI/SLO/SLA","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-10T19:12:09Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-10","last_verified_at":"2026-11-10T20:29:54Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"Power the future of Space at Star Catcher\nStar Catcher is building the first energy grid in space to power the orbital economy.\nToday’s spacecraft must generate all of their own power, which caps what they can do and how long they can operate. But what if they could “plug” into a grid, the way buildings do on Earth? Instead of cables and outlets, Star Catcher is building the technology to wirelessly beam energy to spacecraft’s existing solar panels when and where they need it.\nBe an early member of a team building an entirely new energy infrastructure at scale to power the next frontier.\nStar Catcher Industries, Inc., located in Jacksonville, Florida, has an opportunity for an Optical Engineer - EO Payloads & Imaging Optics to support the development of space-to-space power beaming spacecraft and the Star Catcher Network, its orbital power grid. \nKey Responsibilities\nDesign the optics of electro-optical (EO) payloads for long-range space-based tracking, working with the senior EO engineer, covering the full imaging optical stack: telescope, relay and reimaging optics, field and Lyot stops, beam splitters, spectral filters, and the focal-plane interface.\nDerive imaging requirements (detection range, signal-to-noise ratio, angular resolution, localization accuracy, field of view, frame rate, and stray-light rejection) from tracking needs together with systems engineering.\nDesign reflective imaging telescopes (Cassegrain, Ritchey-Chrétien, and three-mirror anastigmat forms) and the relay and focal-plane optics that follow them.\nBuild imaging performance budgets - WFE, MTF, encircled energy, and radiometric/SNR - decompose them into line items,and track them through test.\nSelect and specify detectors and focal-plane arrays with Electrical Engineering, including pixel pitch, spectral band, quantum efficiency, noise, frame rate, and windowing for tracking.\nPerform stray-light analysis and baffle, stop, and sunshade design for operation near the Sun, Earth limb, and bright sources.\nDefine the optical interfaces between the imaging payload and PAT, including tracking-sensor paths, shared-aperture and transmit/receive separation, and boresight to the transmit beam.\nPerform tolerancing and STOP analysis with mechanical and thermal engineers, including athermalization and 1-g to 0-g focus effects.\nCarry designs from concept through specifications, drawings, and BOM; support assembly, alignment, focus, image-quality testing, and radiometric and geometric calibration.\nBasic Qualifications\nEducation: Bachelor's degree in Optical Engineering, Optics, Physics, or a related technical discipline.\nExperience: 3+ years of hands-on optical design experience on EO or imaging systems. Candidates with substantially more experience, including payloads taken through build and test, are preferred.\nTechnical Expertise\nExpert use of Zemax OpticStudio and/or CODE V for imaging design, including tolerancing and image-quality analysis (MTF, encircled energy, distortion).\nDeep understanding of reflective telescope forms, relay optics, pupil and stop placement, and the tradeoffs between on-axis and unobscured designs.\nRadiometry and SNR modeling for point and extended targets, including detector noise sources, background, and integration-time tradeoffs.\nExperience integrating optics with detectors and focal-plane arrays, including sampling, focus, and calibration.\nStray-light analysis and control (baffles, stops, coatings, surface scatter).\nAbility to build imaging error budgets that combine optics, detector, and line-of-sight jitter contributions.\nPreferred Qualifications\nFlight EO Payloads: Design of flown EO/IR payloads, star trackers, or space-based tracking sensors.\nSpace Domain Awareness: Detection and tracking of resolved or unresolved objects in space.\nStray-Light Tools: FRED, ASAP, or equivalent.\nInfrared Optics: Cryogenic or IR optical design, if mission bands extend beyond visible/NIR.\nIntegrated Modeling: STOP analysis and athermal design.\nAdvanced Degrees: Master's degree or Ph.D. in Optical Sciences, Optical Engineering, or Physics.\nHelp us deploy and scale space infrastructure that will drive our utilization of space forward! We offer a highly competitive benefits package including access to comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, 401(k) retirement plan, life insurance, and paid parental leave, in addition to other benefits.\nStar Catcher is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Star Catcher is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.\nAll offers of employment at Star Catcher are contingent upon results of a thorough background check and your ability to provide proof of eligibility to work in the US.\nTo conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5311,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":3,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Life insurance","Parental leave","Retirement plans"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Space Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-10T20:29:54Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":30,"reasons":["conf:3","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-11T00:25:26Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/star-catcher-optical-engineer-eo-payloads-imaging-optics","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/star-catcher-optical-engineer-eo-payloads-imaging-optics.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-11T00:25:26Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":910,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-12T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1906176},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1906176"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fstar-catcher-optical-engineer-eo-payloads-imaging-optics"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fstar-catcher-optical-engineer-eo-payloads-imaging-optics"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fstar-catcher-optical-engineer-eo-payloads-imaging-optics"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/star-catcher-optical-engineer-eo-payloads-imaging-optics\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fstar-catcher-optical-engineer-eo-payloads-imaging-optics"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":4036470}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"star-catcher.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":4036470},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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