Founding Fab Engineer This company is building the merchant manufacturing layer for the photonics industry. Its initial products are chip-based LiDAR seekers for counter-UAS and precision-guided munitions, built around optical metasurfaces. The roadmap extends through photonic gyroscopes and complete guidance modules toward a merchant photonics foundry serving the defense, data center, and space markets. The company is venture-backed and is establishing its engineering and fabrication operations in the Los Angeles area. The company is seeking a Founding Fab Engineer to establish and lead its nanofabrication capability. This position is responsible for building that capability from its foundation: bringing an optical metasurface process in-house in deliberate stages, commissioning the associated equipment, and scaling toward volume production, while maintaining continuity of supply through external foundries throughout the transition. Reporting directly to the CEO, the Founding Fab Engineer holds end-to-end ownership of the process flow, the equipment base, and the fabrication facility. The role begins with the management of external fabrication partners and the establishment of in-house preparation and metrology, progresses to bringing the highest-variability process steps in-house, and ultimately defines the path to volume manufacturing. As the fabrication organization matures, the Founding Fab Engineer will recruit and lead the team responsible for it. This is among the most consequential early technical appointments at the company and carries corresponding scope, autonomy, and equity. Establish and Scale the Fabrication Capability Maintain and optimize the metasurface process through external foundry partnerships while establishing an in-house preparation and metrology laboratory, qualifying and managing procured pre-coated film wafers, and retaining ownership of the complete process flow where individual steps are outsourced Transition the highest-variability process steps in-house, including the installation, qualification, and operation of an ICP-RIE etcher and a field-emission scanning electron microscope retrofitted with a pattern generator for small-field electron-beam lithography, and drive these tools to production-grade repeatability Assess the case for dedicated electron-beam lithography capability, and define and execute the path to volume production, including electron-beam-written nanoimprint master origination and transition to a nanoimprint foundry at scale Own Process, Equipment, and Facility Maintain process documentation, characterization, and yield across all stages of fabrication Lead capital equipment procurement and vendor management, including sourcing, technical evaluation, negotiation, and installation logistics for both new and pre-owned tools Oversee the fabrication facility, including cleanroom operations, gas and chemical handling, and the mitigation of environmental risks to sensitive equipment prior to installation Recruit, develop, and lead the fabrication team as the capability matures
Required Qualifications:
Bachelor's degree or higher in Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Applied Physics, Chemical Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent demonstrated experience Demonstrated ownership of a nanofabrication process flow, including the development and qualification of a process rather than the execution of predefined recipes, with the ability to detail a specific device carried from bare wafer to functioning part and the failure modes addressed in the process Substantial dry-etch expertise, specifically ICP-RIE, which represents the process step most critical to device performance Process-level electron-beam lithography experience, including exposure strategy, proximity correction, resist stack selection, and write-time and field-size tradeoffs Direct experience installing, qualifying, and maintaining fabrication equipment, preferably pre-owned or transferred tools within a lightly staffed environment Metrology proficiency across scanning electron microscopy, profilometry, and optical inspection, with the judgment to distinguish valid measurements from artifacts Must be a U.S. person (citizen or lawful permanent resident) in accordance with ITAR requirements
Preferred Qualifications:
Direct experience fabricating optical metasurfaces or diffractive and nanophotonic devices, preferably at or near 1550 nmNanoimprint lithography experience, including master origination and imprint fidelity, consistent with the volume production path Experience establishing or substantially expanding a fabrication or process line with a small team and a constrained capital budget, as distinct from operating within a large institutional cleanroom Compound semiconductor or silicon photonics process background, including film deposition (evaporation, sputtering, or atomic layer deposition) and thin-film qualification Experience procuring capital equipment, including negotiation with pre-owned-tool brokers and service vendors and the management of installation logistics Working knowledge of cleanroom classification and of the vibration and electromagnetic-interference sensitivities of scanning electron microscopy and lithography equipment
Why Join:
The Founding Fab Engineer will establish a nanofabrication capability from its foundation and own it in full, defining the process that underpins the entire company roadmap. The role works directly with the founder and a small team of senior engineers and physicists with decades of combined experience in defense photonics, and will determine the pace at which the company transitions from external foundries to a fabrication base of its own. Few positions offer this degree of technical ownership at this stage of a company's growth.
