Application Engineer

Join our high-speed optical transceiver business to help hyperscale customers evaluate, test, and deploy our products for AI data center applications. You’ll be the technical front line-working closely with Sales and the Product Director to diagnose issues, run/coordinate interoperability testing, translate customer requirements into actionable engineering feedback, and ensure successful evaluation-to-pilot-to-deployment outcomes.

Key responsibilities

• Establish and maintain suitable evaluation and test capabilities in Bay Area office to support product evaluation and customer demonstrations

• Support customer optical transceiver evaluations with hands-on technical assistance (bring-up, configuration, verification, and troubleshooting).

• Plan and execute interoperability and acceptance test activities (as defined by customer and internal test plans).

• Coordinate lab work and testing logistics with internal engineering teams (hardware/firmware/systems/test).

• Analyze and debug link performance issues (e.g., BER/eye/constellation, signal integrity, thermal/power behavior, error patterns).

• Prepare technical documentation for customers and internal teams: test reports, procedures, troubleshooting notes, and results summaries.

• Support pre-sales and post-sales technical engagements alongside Sales (technical demos, technical Q&A, evaluation support).

• Act as a technical translator between customer needs and product/engineering: capture requirements, document gaps, propose mitigations.

• Support RF/optical/DSP configuration guidance (where applicable) and ensure customer setup aligns with product operating conditions.

• Contribute to continuous improvement of evaluation/test processes and customer success playbooks.

• Participate in customer escalations when deeper technical root-cause work is required., What success looks like (first 6-12 months)

• You establish complete test and measurement lab environment, coordinated with R&D/product development team

• You consistently enable customer evaluations by delivering rapid technical support, correct test execution, and accurate reporting.

• You improve evaluation success rates by proactively identifying configuration/test mismatches and gaps early.

• You provide high-quality customer feedback that translates into actionable engineering updates or documentation improvements.

Working style

• High ownership in the lab and in customer engagements.

• Structured problem-solving and strong documentation habits.

• Collaborative mindset with Sales and Product Director, R&D; comfortable managing multiple evaluations in parallel.

Organizational context & interactions

• Reports to: Chief Marketing Officer.

• Close partners: Product Director, Product Marketing/Technical Marketing, Solution/System/Applications Engineering, Supply Chain/Ops, Finance, and external partners where needed.

• 5-10 years of experience in optical networking, data center optics, high-speed links, transceivers, or related test/validation/field application engineering.

• Strong understanding of high-speed optics/transceiver systems and standards, including concepts such as link budgets, BER, signal integrity, and optical/electrical performance metrics.

• Hands-on experience with lab equipment and testing workflows relevant to transceiver evaluation.

• Ability to write clear technical documentation and communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Comfort working in cross-functional settings with Sales and product/engineering teams.

Preferred qualifications

• PhD (EE/Photonics/Optical Engineering or equivalent).

• Experience specifically with pluggable optics and/or coherent and/or PAM4-based transceiver ecosystems.

• Experience with interoperability testing processes and working with hyperscale evaluation/qualification workflows.

• Familiarity with common test/measurement tooling for optical/electrical link characterization.

• Experience troubleshooting production issues and driving root-cause analysis with engineering teams.