Optical Characterization Engineer Jobs in California

As a Staff Opto-Mechanical Engineer, you will serve as a technical owner for the optical and opto-mechanical systems within Divergent's laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) platform. 

You will work on a complex production machine already operating in the field, with responsibility for improving optical performance, reliability, repeatability, calibration, and long-term system capability. You will lead difficult technical investigations, drive design improvements, establish engineering methods and standards, and help define the evolution of future printer architectures. 

This role requires both deep technical capability and broad system ownership across optics, mechanical engineering, controls, software, additive process development, manufacturing, quality, and service. 

• Serve as a technical authority for printer optics and beam-delivery systems. 
• Own system performance, reliability, calibration, and continued development of critical optical and opto-mechanical hardware. 
• Lead root-cause investigations involving focus, spot size, scan-field behavior, alignment, thermal drift, vibration, contamination, calibration, and mechanical stability. 
• Translate fleet and production issues into structured investigations, corrective actions, and durable design improvements. 
• Develop and maintain optical error budgets, requirements, calibration strategies, acceptance criteria, and validation methods. 
• Determine whether performance issues should be addressed through calibration, compensation, hardware changes, process changes, or architectural redesign. 
• Plan and lead optical characterization, prototype testing, design-of-experiments, and system validation. 
• When needed, work hands-on with printers to assemble, align, calibrate, characterize, and troubleshoot optical systems. 
• Partner with software, controls, service, and process teams to improve calibration, diagnostics, compensation, and print consistency. 
• Work with manufacturing, service, quality, and suppliers to improve robustness, serviceability, component performance, and fleet consistency. 
• Identify limitations in the current optical architecture and define improvements for current and future printer generations. 
• Establish reusable engineering standards, design practices, test methods, and troubleshooting approaches. 
• Mentor engineers and lead cross-functional technical decisions where optical performance depends on interactions across multiple disciplines. 
• Design and release improvements to optical mounts, scanner integration, beam-delivery hardware, calibration systems, and precision mechanical structures. 

• Ability to lawfully access information and technology that is subject to US export controls.
• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Optical Engineering, Physics, Applied Physics, or a related discipline. 
• 7+ years of relevant engineering experience, or equivalent demonstrated technical capability. 
• Demonstrated experience owning or leading development of complex optical or opto-mechanical systems. 
• Strong understanding of geometric optics and laser-system fundamentals. 
• Experience designing precision mechanical hardware for optical alignment and stability. 
• Strong capability in 3D CAD, engineering drawings, GD&T, and tolerance analysis. 
• Experience with optical alignment, calibration, characterization, and system-level error budgeting. Including hands-on experience assembling, aligning, testing, and debugging sophisticated hardware. 
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot complex multidisciplinary hardware problems. 
• Ability to lead technical work across organizational boundaries and communicate technical decisions clearly. 
• Experience mentoring engineers or establishing technical standards and methods. 

• Experience with laser powder bed fusion, laser-based manufacturing equipment, semiconductor equipment, metrology systems, or other precision production machinery. 
• Experience with high-power near-infrared lasers, galvanometer scanners, scan lenses, beam-conditioning optics, or multi-laser systems. 
• Experience characterizing focus, spot size, beam quality, field performance, distortion, or laser power distribution. 
• Experience with machine calibration, coordinate transformations, compensation, or precision metrology. 
• Experience developing calibration fixtures, alignment tooling, or automated optical characterization systems. 
• Experience with thermal drift, vibration, contamination, or long-term alignment stability in precision systems. 
• Experience with optical modeling tools such as Zemax OpticStudio, Code V, or equivalent. 
• Familiarity with Class 4 laser safety, production hardware release, configuration management, and supplier development. 
• Familiarity with Siemens NX and Teamcenter. 

• On-site role spanning office, optical laboratory, prototype-build, and manufacturing-floor environments. 
• Regular hands-on interaction with precision optical hardware, industrial equipment, and L-PBF machines.