Lead Engineer- Optical Coating Design

JOB TITLE

Lead Engineer – Optical Coating Design

Director, Filter Design and Coating Technology

Center of Excellence, West Henrietta, NY (Onsite/hybrid remote possible)

Certain positions with IDEX Corporation and its business units require access to controlled goods and technologies subject to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations or the Export Administration Regulations. Applicants for these positions may need to be "U.S. Persons," as defined in these regulations. Generally, a "U.S. Person" is a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, lawful permanent resident, or an individual who has been granted refugee or asylum status.

The Optical Filters Group is seeking a highly motivated engineer to join our industry-leading team of optical coating designers. This role will support Semrock's mission as the Optical Coatings Design Center of Excellence and will work closely with Advanced Thin Films (ATF) and other IDEX businesses to develop innovative optical coating solutions and expand optical coating technology capabilities across the enterprise.

The successful candidate will apply advanced modeling, optimization, and engineering principles to create sophisticated, manufacturable, and cost-effective optical filter designs while contributing to technology development across multiple business units and manufacturing locations. Our filter coatings are highly sophisticated, often consisting of hundreds of individual layers. Success in this role requires both strong technical and analytical skills and the ability to develop practical, manufacturable solutions.

While prior thin-film design experience is highly desirable, candidates with demonstrated excellence in applying scientific and engineering principles to complex physical systems and a proven ability to learn quickly are encouraged to apply. This position will collaborate closely with engineering, manufacturing, applications, and technology teams across businesses. The role requires up to 20% travel, primarily to Colorado and other facilities as needed.

The fundamental responsibility of this engineering position is the development of sophisticated, manufacturable optical filter designs through advanced modeling and optimization techniques. Key measures of success:

• Delivery of designs that meet customer performance requirements.
• Rapid and responsive support of product development activities.
• Manufacturing yield, reproducibility, and robustness of released designs.
• Cost-effective designs optimized for performance and manufacturability.
• Advancement of enterprise-wide optical coating design capabilities.
• Contributions to innovation, technical excellence, and intellectual property development.

• Design and optimize advanced optical coatings for customer and product development programs.
• Work closely with Applications Engineers and Application Scientists to support customer engagements, specification development, feasibility assessments, and design estimates.
• Communicate complex technical concepts and tradeoffs to team members, business stakeholders, and occasionally customers with varying levels of technical expertise.
• Serve as a key technical link between product design teams and coating manufacturing operations.
• Partner with engineering and manufacturing teams across businesses to deploy best practices in optical filter design, coating processes, monitoring methodologies, and metrology techniques.
• Develop designs that consider both customer requirements and manufacturing capabilities to maximize yield, reproducibility, and cost effectiveness.
• Contribute to the development and execution of optical coating technology roadmaps.
• Develop, document, and continuously improve design methodologies, modeling approaches, and standard work.
• Support the introduction of new products, technologies, and design methods into manufacturing.
• Collaborate with specialists in software, modeling, process engineering, metrology, and manufacturing to enhance design capabilities and process performance.
• Analyze manufacturing and metrology data to improve design robustness and long-term product performance.
• Generate innovative technical solutions and contribute to the company's intellectual property portfolio through invention disclosures, patents, and proprietary design methodologies.
• Interact regularly with manufacturing personnel, engineers, scientists, and business leaders to solve technical challenges and improve organizational capabilities.

• Independently develops, optimizes, and releases manufacturable optical filter designs.
• Manages multiple customer and internal product development projects simultaneously.
• Applies established design methodologies to solve complex technical challenges.
• Works effectively with Applications, Manufacturing, Quality, and Engineering teams to achieve project objectives.
• Contributes to continuous improvement of design methods, workflows, and…