Optical Engineer

Department:
Smart Intelligence Team

The Optical Engineer will design, install, and own the optics of every vision inspection across Qcells’ solar manufacturing line, spanning ingot, wafer, cell, and module processes at the Cartersville (CTV) and Dalton (DLT) plants. The first assignment is optical design and installation: specifying illumination, lens, and camera for each defect type, building the setup on the line, and proving that it reveals what it is meant to reveal.

Detection performance is set by the optics before any algorithm sees the image. The role also builds the software that runs around the optics, including camera control and image acquisition, the interface to the AI inference server, and the on-floor viewer used by operators and engineers. Deep learning detection models are developed by dedicated AI engineers on the same team, so this role owns the optics, the application around them, and the measurement of inspection performance rather than model development.

Description

Optical Engineer

Title:

Optical Engineer

Location:

Cartersville, GA (Qcells Cartersville Factory) Department:
Smart Intelligence Team

The Optical Engineer will design, install, and own the optics of every vision inspection across Qcells’ solar manufacturing line, spanning ingot, wafer, cell, and module processes at the Cartersville (CTV) and Dalton (DLT) plants. The first assignment is optical design and installation: specifying illumination, lens, and camera for each defect type, building the setup on the line, and proving that it reveals what it is meant to reveal.

Detection performance is set by the optics before any algorithm sees the image. The role also builds the software that runs around the optics, including camera control and image acquisition, the interface to the AI inference server, and the on-floor viewer used by operators and engineers. Deep learning detection models are developed by dedicated AI engineers on the same team, so this role owns the optics, the application around them, and the measurement of inspection performance rather than model development.

Responsibilities

• Design inspection optics for each defect type, covering illumination (wavelength, angle, uniformity), lens, field of view, resolution, and camera or sensor selection, and finalize installation specifications with mechanical and controls engineering
• Install and commission inspection systems on the production line, including mounting, alignment, focus and lighting setup, and acceptance criteria for image quality
• Lead proof-of-concept evaluation of new inspection capability, including vendor technical assessment, bench trial design, detection-limit measurement, and production readiness decisions
• Own optical specifications for new inspection lines from the ground up, including vendor selection, incoming acceptance testing, and commissioning
• Quantify and track inspection performance in production (over-kill rate, miss rate, and detection coverage), and design the evaluation sample set and labels required to measure them, including known-good labels
• Set and maintain detection thresholds and judgment criteria together with process and quality engineering
• Monitor and correct image quality on equipment already in production: focus and brightness drift, field-of-view alignment, tool-to-tool variation, and line-to-line standardization
• Determine root-cause attribution when over-kill or miss rates rise, separating optical, process, and model causes, working with AI, process, and equipment engineering
• Develop the vision application that runs around the optics, covering camera control, triggering, image acquisition and preprocessing, and the interface to the AI inference server at line speed
• Build and maintain the on-floor viewer used by operators…