Bring-Up Photonics Engineer

About Xscape Photonics

Xscape Photonics is helping customers escape the scaling limits of Agentic AI hardware by enabling machines to think faster. Spun out of groundbreaking silicon photonics work at Columbia University, the company has developed a scalable multi-color laser platform to solve the escape bandwidth bottlenecks limiting GPU-to-GPU and GPU-to-memory interfaces. With a leadership team having multiple decades of experience shipping photonics products and backed by investors including Nvidia and Cisco, the company has recently begun sampling its first technology validation kits and is currently engaged with pilot customers for its first product launch.

About the Role

Xscape Photonics is looking for a skilled Firmware Engineer to lead the development of the validation and test firmware used to bring-up, characterize and qualify new hardware and control algorithms in our optical communication systems. This role presents an exciting opportunity for individuals passionate about photonics and firmware development who want to build the embedded systems that operate lasers, modulators, and photodetectors in an integrated photonics laser platform.

In this role, you will develop the validation firmware, prioritizing deep access, instrumentation, and rapid iteration that bring-up efforts require. You will test new hardware and control methods on early units, and work closely with our production firmware team to handoff validated behavior for productization. 

Responsibilities

• Design and implement validation firmware for microcontroller -based platforms that drive lasers, modulators, photodetectors, and associated control electronics - to bring up, characterize, and quality new hardware and control algorithms.
• Implement control methods prototyped in Python as embedded firmware, and verify they reproduce the intended behavior on hardware.
• Interface with precision ADC and DAC channels for laser current control, temperature control (TEC), power monitoring, and photodiode feedback.
• Implement bootloaders, firmware update mechanisms, and diagnostics/telemetry features for manufacturing and field support.
• Configure and read sensors, DACs/ADCs, and control elements over I²C, SPI, UART, GPIO.
• Support hardware bring-up, board-level debug of custom PCBs and evaluation boards, using standard lab instrumentation (oscilloscope, DMM, logic/protocol analyzers).
• Characterize behavior across operating corners, document failure modes and resolutions, and handoff validated behavior and test procedures for productization.
• Maintain design documentation, interface control documents, and test procedures for productization.

Required Skills & Experience:

• BS/MS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field, with 3+ years in embedded firmware.
• Embedded firmware in C/C++ for real-time systems (bare-metal and/or RTOS-based), including real-time and interrupt-driven design.
• Microcontrollers and low-level peripheral interfaces (I²C, SPI, UART, GPIO, ADC/DAC)ADC/DAC interfacing - configuration, calibration, sampling strategies, and filtering.
• Microcontroller clocking and timing: clock tree and PLL configuration, hardware timers/PWM, interrupt latency and priority management, and timer/DMA-driven deterministic sampling. 
• Implementing hardware-control algorithms as clean, modular, and testable firmware.
• Reading schematics/ datasheets and working directly with PCB-level hardware during bring-up and debug, using standard lab instrumentation (oscilloscope, DMM, logic/protocol analyzers).
• Version control (Git) and standard software engineering practices.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills; Excellent communication and teamwork.

“Nice to have” Skills & Experience:

• Closed-loop control theory and its implementation in software and hardware (PID and beyond, system identification, stability analysis).
• Photonics components and systems, including lasers, optical amplifiers, modulators, and photo detectors; familiarity with TOSA/ROSA components and laser driver ICs.
• TEC control, thermal management, and precision analog control loops.
• Mixed-signal PCB design and bring-up, including schematic capture and layout review, power delivery, power sequencing, and biasing.
• Embedded Linux or SoC FPGAs (e.g., Zynq, Cyclone/Arria SoC) - firmware/FPGA interfacing, register-map design, HDL (VHDL/Verilog) awareness.
• Python for higher-level control, test automation, and data analysis.
• DSP fundamentals (filtering, sampling theory, noise analysis).
• Unit testing frameworks, static analysis, and CI/CD for embedded projects.