Optical and Applications Engineer

Singular Photonics is a fast-growing fabless semiconductor start-up, developing Single-Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) sensors that bring advanced computation directly into imaging. Our sensors enable innovations across LiDAR, fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM), spectroscopy and time-resolved optical measurements, powering next-generation solutions for customers worldwide. Based at Orchard Brae House in Edinburgh, we are a close-knit team at the forefront of the photonics revolution.

We are seeking an Optical and Applications Engineer to join our optical and applications team. Reporting to the Lead Optical and Applications Engineer, you will build and characterise optical systems, run the experiments that prove what our sensors can do, and help turn those results into demonstrators, application notes and customer conversations.

This is a hands-on role with plenty of room to grow. The Lead Optical and Applications Engineer owns our optical design and application strategy and will support you on system design, experimental approach and customer-facing work. You will also work alongside our hardware, ASIC, firmware and software engineers.

• Applications Development: Design, build and test applications using Singular Photonics SPAD cameras, taking them from agreed concept through to a working demonstrator.
• Optical Design & Simulation: Support optical system design and simulation for new camera platforms using Zemax or equivalent tools, and validate designs against measured performance.
• Applications Engineering: Contribute to the application notes, technical material and demonstrations that help customers get results from our sensors.
• Experimental Work: Build, align and troubleshoot optical and optomechanical setups in the lab, including time-resolved and photon-counting measurements.
• Instrument Control & Analysis: Write the scripts that control instruments, acquire data and process results, in Python, MATLAB, C/C++ or LabVIEW.
• Quantum Applications: Contribute to the development and demonstration of quantum applications of our sensors, such as photon correlation and coincidence measurements and quantum-enhanced sensing.
• Collaborative R&D: Contribute technical work and results to collaborative R&D projects and grant-funded consortia, including input to project reporting.
• Research & IP: Contribute to scientific publications and to patent filings arising from the applications you develop.
• Customer & Commercial Support: Support business development with technical input, and take part in customer meetings and application discussions.
• Demonstrators: Build demonstration prototypes for trade shows, conferences and customer visits, and present them clearly to specialist and non-specialist audiences.
• Documentation: Create and maintain clear system documentation so that applications are reproducible by others, to the standard our ISO 9001 design control process requires.

• Hands-on experience in optical system assembly, alignment, testing and troubleshooting.
• Experience of optical system design and simulation, using Zemax or an equivalent tool.
• Proficiency in at least one of Python, MATLAB, C/C++ or LabVIEW for instrument control and data processing.
• Working knowledge of photon counting or time-resolved techniques such as TCSPC.
• Able to explain technical work clearly to colleagues, customers and non-specialists.
• Comfortable in a small company where priorities shift and everyone pitches in.

• Experience in quantum optics: photon correlation and g2 measurements, coincidence counting, entangled photon pair sources, quantum imaging or quantum key distribution.
• Direct experience with SPAD cameras, image sensors or single-photon detection systems.
• Application knowledge in LiDAR, FLIM, Raman spectroscopy, microscopy or other imaging modalities.
• Optomechanical integration and system prototyping.
• Contributions to scientific publications or patent filings.
• Experience of working within an ISO 9001 quality management system.

Degree in Optical Engineering, Physics, Photonics, Quantum Optics or a related field and 3-6 years' industrial experience in a relevant role.

• Scientific Rigour: Designs and runs experiments carefully, and is clear about what a measurement does and does not show.
• Hands-On Experimentalist: Happy on the optical bench, and systematic when a setup is not behaving as the simulation said it would.
• Commercial…