Photonics Researcher Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Flexcompute is the physics company. We scale first-principles physics into neural physics foundation models to redefine the boundaries of industrial simulation and design.

Our core technology features the world’s fastest GPU solvers, delivering orders-of-magnitude speedups over traditional tools. By integrating these solvers with our proprietary AI models, we enable engineers to explore design spaces that were previously computationally inaccessible. At Flexcompute, we don’t just make simulations faster; we make the “impossible” solvable, helping our partners tackle the most critical challenges in 3D-IC design, aerospace, and beyond.

We need someone who will put Tidy3D in front of every photonics researcher, professor, and grad student in the country.

This is a hands-on, high-travel, high-visibility role. You'll spend most of your time presenting - giving talks at CLEO and Photonics West, running live simulation demos at university labs, teaching workshops where students build their first ring resonator in Tidy3D, and sitting down with professors to show them why this belongs in their syllabus.

You are not managing a team or writing strategy decks. You are the person in the room making the product click for people. You'll demo, teach, troubleshoot, write tutorials, record walkthroughs, answer questions on forums, and fly to the next campus. If a professor emails asking how to set up a grating coupler simulation for their photonics course, that's your inbox.

You'll start in photonics and EM, but as we expand into multi-physics (thermal, structural, RF), the scope grows with you.

This is a remote position based in the US or Canada. Expect frequent travel - 30-50% of your time will be at conferences, campuses, and research labs. We have an office in the Boston area if you prefer a home base.

Present and Teach

• Give talks, demos, and workshops at conferences (CLEO, Photonics West, IEEE Photonics, OFC, SPIE), universities, and company R&D groups
• Run hands-on sessions where researchers go from zero to a working Tidy3D simulation
• Visit university photonics, EE, and physics departments to demonstrate the platform to professors, postdocs, and grad students
• Present at seminars, lab meetings, and departmental colloquia

Create Content

• Write tutorials, example notebooks, and application notes (silicon photonics, optical interconnects, metasurfaces, waveguide design, etc.)
• Record video walkthroughs and short-form demos
• Build course-ready materials that professors can drop into their syllabi
• Write blog posts, technical notes, and social content that drive awareness

Build Community

• Become the face of Tidy3D in the academic photonics community
• Grow a base of student users, faculty champions, and research group adopters
• Engage on forums, GitHub, social media - wherever users have questions
• Bring feedback from the field back to the product team: what's working, what's confusing, what's missing

Requirements

• PhD or Masters in photonics, optics, electrical engineering, or a closely related field
• You can explain the difference between TE and TM modes, design a directional coupler, and discuss dispersion engineering without checking your notes. You've worked with electromagnetic simulation in your own research.
• Fluent in Python - You can write and debug simulation scripts live in front of an audience. You've used Jupyter notebooks for research. You can walk a student through their first API call.
• Hands-on photonic simulation experience - You've designed and simulated photonic devices - waveguides, resonators, couplers, gratings, or similar. You've used tools like Lumerical, COMSOL, Ansys HFSS, RSoft, Meep, or similar, and you understand FDTD, FEM, or eigenmode solvers at a working level, not just conceptually.
• A natural presenter - You're the person who volunteered to give the group meeting talk. You enjoy being in front of a room. You can make a complex topic accessible without dumbing it down. People leave your talks wanting to try the thing you showed them.
• Energized by travel - Conferences, campus visits, and lab tours are the parts of the job you look forward to, not the parts you tolerate. You see face time as the highest-leverage activity.
• Self-directed - Nobody is going to hand you a list of universities to visit or talks to submit. You'll identify the opportunities, pitch the abstracts, book the travel, and show up prepared. You thrive with autonomy.

• Experience in technical evangelism, developer relations, or academic outreach
• Existing relationships within university photonics/EE departments
• Background in silicon photonics, optical interconnects, or AI datacenter architecture
• Experience with Tidy3D
• Published research using electromagnetic simulation
• Experience creating video tutorials or technical content
• Familiarity with agentic AI, LLM-based tools, or AI-assisted design workflows
• Experience with multi-physics simulation (thermal, structural, RF)

• A leadership role at the intersection of AI and photonics, two of the fastest-moving fields in tech
• A clear growth path as we expand into multi-physics products and new academic markets
• The chance to become the most recognized name in photonics simulation education
• A team of deeply technical people who care about getting this right
• The chance to shape how an entire generation of engineers learns to work with AI-driven simulation
• A team that is serious about its mission to advance science and technology education
• A collaborative, technically deep culture that values curiosity and initiative

If you read this and thought "this is exactly what I want to do," we want to hear from you.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation with equity of a fast-growing startup.
• Medical, dental, and vision health insurance.
• 401(k) Contribution.
• Gym allowance.
• Friendly, thoughtful, and intelligent coworkers.