Photonics Account Manager

Are you passionate about turning complex customer engagements into seamless, high-trust partnerships? At Lightium, we're pioneering next-generation photonic integrated circuits (PICs) built on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN), and we're looking for a Photonics Account Manager to serve as the backbone of our customer relationships, from purchase order entry through interfacing with our R&D team to long-term production agreements.

In this role, you'll join our Commercial Team, reporting to the CRO, and take ownership of the customer journey from project onboarding through delivery and after-sales expansion. You'll run structured customer touchpoints, coordinate across our internal operations and design teams, and ensure every MPW run is delivered on time, keeping every customer up to date on project status. Your work will be the bridgehead between Lightium's technical execution and our customers' confidence in Lightium as its prime photonics foundry partner.

Lead major customer engagements with Lightium's foundry services, from kick-off and design submission to DRC report, regular update meetings, as well as shipment, invoicing, and after-sales support. Ensure customers always know where they stand thanks to your remarkable organization and communication skills.

Track deliverables and open items across multiple simultaneous runs. Serve as the single customer-facing point of contact for run status, routing all technical questions to the appropriate internal resource, and closing the loop with the customer. Maintain tight alignment with our R&D Team and Operations Team through regular internal syncs. Keep CRM records tidy and up-to-date across all active engagements.

Design, document, and optimize Lightium's internal business processes that make our customer journey scalable. Create best practices and standard operating procedures (SOPs) across our tools (CRM, Customer Portal, PLM, ERP, etc.) so that the approach defined today scales to a larger team tomorrow.

Contribute to shaping, developing, and maintaining Lightium's customer portal in collaboration with internal Dev Ops to ensure fully traceable data sharing with customers, such as PDK, technical updates, presentations, shipments, delivery notes, etc.

Build trusted and durable relationships with customer-side program managers, heads of photonics, and engineering leads. Represent Lightium and expand your network at related trade shows. This position requires regular international travel to trade shows, conferences, and customer visits. While Lightium offers flexible working hours, this position requires regular meetings outside standard European office hours to meet with customers in different time zones.

An advanced degree (Master or PhD) in Photonics, Engineering, Physics, or related technical field. Business or project management training is a plus.

3-7 years in technical sales, account management, customer project or program management or customer success in a semiconductor or photonics environment. A foundry or contract manufacturing background is a strong advantage. Demonstrated track record managing multiple simultaneous customer engagements with complex technical deliverables and tight timelines.

Sufficient photonics or semiconductor literacy to hold a credible conversation with a customer's engineering team. You will not need to design photonics chips, but you need to understand what a DRC violation, an insertion loss spec, or a fabrication yield figure means in…