Senior Platform Applications Engineer

We are seeking a skilled Senior Platform Applications Engineer at Black Semiconductor to enable successful customer adoption of our next-generation photonic interconnect technology. You will guide customers through the integration of our products into high-performance systems, supporting everything from reference design development and bring-up to system validation, debugging, and production readiness.

Working closely with Product, Photonics, Packaging, Test Engineering, and Commercial teams, you will serve as the primary technical interface for strategic customers, translating complex optical and high-speed connectivity challenges into practical solutions. Your work will directly influence customer success while feeding real-world insights back into product development and future platform evolution.

This role bridges customer engineering, high-speed system integration, FPGA/ASIC platforms, and advanced photonic interconnect technologies.

To join our team, you should be excited to

• Guide customers in integrating Black Semiconductor products into systems including switches, NICs, AI accelerators, ASICs, and FPGA-based platforms.
• Support customer bring-up, validation, and debugging, including link training, BER validation, interoperability testing, firmware configuration, and system-level issue resolution.
• Develop reference designs, application notes, integration guides, and technical documentation covering schematics, PCB design, power delivery, clocking, fiber/cable routing, thermal considerations, and management interfaces.
• Design and maintain FPGA-based demonstration platforms, evaluation hardware, and software tools that showcase product capabilities.
• Partner with Product, Optics, Packaging, and Test teams to communicate customer feedback, resolve field issues, and shape future product improvements.
• Support pre-sales evaluations, customer demonstrations, benchmarking, technical workshops, and post-sales debug escalations for strategic customers on-site and remotely.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Physics, or a related technical field, or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience in applications engineering, systems engineering, field applications engineering, or hardware development for high-speed semiconductor, networking, or optical communication products.
• Strong experience with FPGA and ASIC bring-up, including PCB design, RTL/IP integration, embedded software, hardware validation, and FPGA development toolchains.
• Hands-on experience debugging high-speed systems, including SerDes interfaces, using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, BERTs, pattern generators, protocol analyzers, and similar laboratory equipment.
• Good understanding of optical interconnect technologies, including optical transceivers, Co-Packaged Optics (CPO), optical chiplets, link budgets, NRZ/PAM4 modulation, equalization, and high-speed standards such as Ethernet, PCIe, CXL, and JESD204.
• Strong programming and scripting skills (Python, C/C++, or similar) for automation, test control, data analysis, demonstration platforms, and customer integration collateral, including reference hardware, SDKs, PDKs, and application documentation.
• Excellent customer-facing communication skills, with the ability to explain complex hardware, signal integrity, and optical system concepts while supporting customer evaluations, demonstrations, technical workshops, and on-site debugging.
• Familiarity with photonic integrated circuits, advanced packaging, AI infrastructure, next-generation datacenter interconnects, PCB CAD tools, and engineering documentation will be considered a plus.

People Over Processes. At Black Semiconductor, flexibility is key-we ensure work adapts to life, not the other way around. We champion work-life harmony, where careers are meaningful and enriching. Our processes are human-centric, allowing you to focus on what matters

Let’s grow together. Your potential is our priority. We provide the autonomy to make a lasting impact and nurture your growth through a culture of continuous learning. We invest in your journey for professional and personal development

Your Health and Future Matter. Your well-being is paramount. We offer a comprehensive benefits package with outstanding insurance, pension and virtual stock options for your mental, physical, and financial health. Your peace of mind is our priority - in the present and future

We Live Openness. Collaboration and inclusivity are the cornerstones of our culture. We practice openness, fostering trust and respect. Individuality is our collective strength, fueling innovation and driving us forward

We see the semiconductor industry as a realm of possibility. We see opportunity. We see the profound impact that our graphene solutions will have in transforming the industry. We invite you to join us in driving change with our fundamentally human-centered approach, uniting bright minds around a shared vision. The vision is: Prove to everybody that you can make a fundamental change. Prove with your knowledge and skills how things can be done differently. Together, we can change the paradigm of how the world connects

About our technology The Role

The semiconductor industry’s growing demand for more powerful chips with higher bandwidth and lower power finds its solution in our technology. We connect chips to high-throughput, low-delay computing networks. The key lies in harnessing the physical properties of graphene to combine electronic computing with photonic communication, allowing countless chips to interact almost as if they were one. Our graphene photonic innovation increases computing power and efficiency to a new order of magnitude

In short, we connect chips to create powerful and energy-efficient networks, overcoming connectivity limitations in the semiconductor industry. We deliver the graphene solution