Principal Electro-Optical/Adaptive Optics Engineer, Directed Energy
Core
Serve as the adaptive optics and wavefront control authority for a directed-energy laser demonstrator, owning requirements, performance budgets, and implementation plans while feeding beam control lessons back to the company's fusion program.
Role type
Principal Electro-Optical/Adaptive Optics Engineer
Builds
Directed-energy laser demonstrator systems and adaptive optics groups
Domain
Directed Energy / Inertial Fusion Energy
Required skills
Adaptive optics system design, wavefront control, performance modeling (atmospheric turbulence, thermal blooming), wave-optics prediction, deformable mirror architecture, real-time control loop design, vendor/partner technical management, trade studies, risk mitigation, experimental design
Preferred skills
Experience with deep-UV wavefront and pointing problems, mentorship of engineers and scientists, rapid hardware prototyping
Technologies
Deformable mirrors, wavefront sensors, reconstructors, real-time control loops
Responsibilities
Own adaptive optics and wavefront control requirements from top-level objectives down to component specifications; Build and maintain end-to-end performance models including propagation through atmospheric turbulence and thermal blooming; Set requirements on deformable mirrors, wavefront sensors, and real-time control loops; Lead trade studies and architecture decisions regarding correction topology and sensing approaches; Act as primary technical interface for external partners on adaptive optics and beam control; Define proof-of-concept experiments and review test plans to validate performance and closed-loop operation
