Senior Photonics Test & Automation Engineer

K2 is building the largest and highest-power satellites ever flown, unlocking performance levels previously out of reach across every orbit. Backed by over $1 billion in total funding from leading investors including Altimeter Capital, ICONIQ, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and T. Rowe Price — and with over $1 billion in signed contracts across commercial and US government customers, we're mass-producing the highest-power satellite platforms ever built for missions from LEO to deep space.

The rise of heavy-lift launch vehicles is shifting the industry from an era of mass constraint to one of mass abundance, and we believe this new era demands a fundamentally different class of spacecraft. Engineered to survive the harshest radiation environments and to fully capitalize on today's and tomorrow's massive rockets, K2 satellites deliver unmatched capability at constellation scale and across multiple orbits.

With multiple launches in 2027 and plans to scale to 100 satellites a year, we're Building Bigger — helping develop the solar system and build toward a Kardashev Type II (K2) civilization. If you are a motivated individual who thrives in a fast‑paced environment and you're excited about contributing to the success of a high‑growth Series D-funded company, we'd love for you to apply.

K2's ambitions extend beyond the satellite bus. By designing and operating our own spacecraft and regularly manifesting hardware to orbit, K2 is uniquely positioned to develop, test, and deploy ambitious, “limit‑of‑physics” optical and photonic payloads across MEO, GEO, cislunar, and deep space on unprecedented timelines. The satellite bus is the platform – the payloads are the mission.

As the first Photonics Test & Automation Engineer on K2's founding photonics team, your role is to define how K2 tests photonics: you will build the lab and the software that turn photonic integrated circuits (PICs), from wafers and die to packaged modules, into data the team trusts and uses to improve future product generations. You will own photonic test from first-silicon bring‑up through production screening, working alongside PIC designers, packaging engineers, and K2's ASIC and post‑silicon validation teams.

Our photonics are tested on the bench and through free space, so you will also connect PIC test stations to custom free‑space optical testbeds and channel emulators so device and channel measurements run in one framework. In your first year, you will stand up an automated PIC test station from the ground up and set the standard every photonic part K2 builds is characterized against.

• Design, build, and own automated wafer‑, die‑, and module‑level PIC test stations, including optical and RF probing, fiber‑array alignment, and swept‑laser measurements.
• Develop modular, reusable test automation software and instrument drivers in Python, with version control, CI, and AI‑assisted tooling, and a shared data pipeline used by design, packaging, and reliability engineers.
• Interface PIC test stations with custom free‑space optical testbeds (beam delivery and steering, spatial light modulators and phase screens, cameras and wavefront sensors) through shared instrument control, synchronization, and data.
• Characterize passive and active photonic devices (wave guides, couplers, filters, modulators, photodetectors, and heaters) including high‑speed electro‑optic measurements.
• Own design‑for‑test standards (test‑structure library, probe and fiber‑array conventions); correlate measurements with simulation, feed them into the team's design automation and modeling flow, and maintain statistical process control and gauge R&R.
• Build portable,…