Full-Time
Principal Hardware Systems Technical Lead
Posted on 9/10/2026
Lightmatter
201-500 employees
Photonic computing hardware for AI acceleration
Compensation Overview
$217k - $308k/yr
Mountain View, CA, USA
Hybrid
Flexible hybrid workplace model.
Bachelor's
 Hardware Engineering (1) |
|---|
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- A bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related discipline with 15+ years of relevant industry experience.
- A demonstrated track record of taking multiple complex hardware systems from concept through production.
- Deep knowledge of voltage regulator modules, high-speed SerDes, and interfaces and protocols including PCIe, Ethernet, SPI/QSPI, I3C, I2C, and JTAG.
- Experience leading multidisciplinary development, integration, and troubleshooting across electrical, mechanical, and firmware domains.
- The ability to take strong ownership and work in ambiguous and dynamic environments.
- Provide technical leadership and mentorship to team members to drive excellence and elevate the team's collective output.
- Own and drive multiple complex projects and hardware systems development throughout the full lifecycle, from concept through production.
- Collaborate with system architects and technical leads to define and develop hardware systems for photonic artificial intelligence infrastructure applications.
- Define, develop, and review PCBAs to meet system-level electrical, power, and interface requirements.
- Lead hands-on integration, verification, and validation across bench bring-up, engineering validation testing, design validation testing, and production release.
- Drive cross-functional collaboration with firmware, photonics, packaging, and software teams to resolve dependencies and manage tradeoffs.
- Maintain thorough hardware documentation for schematics, design reviews, test plans, validation reports, and other engineering documentation.
- Research components and technologies to meet current and next-generation product goals, contribute to the technology roadmap, and improve development processes and engineering best practices.
- Mentor and provide technical guidance to engineers on the team.
- Experience designing hardware systems for artificial intelligence or high-performance computing data center infrastructure, optical transceivers, or silicon photonics products.
- Experience with Systems Engineering methodology, including requirements definition and traceability, failure mode and effects analysis, and engineering, design, and production validation planning and execution.
- Familiarity with advanced packaging technologies and high-density printed circuit board design.
Lightmatter develops photonic computing hardware to speed up AI workloads using light-based processing. Their photonic systems run AI tasks faster and use about 90% less energy than traditional processors. They target AI and autonomous vehicle workloads and collaborate with universities to advance electro-photonic systems. Revenue comes from hardware sales, software licenses, and partnerships, with a goal of bringing scalable photonic computing to market for faster, energy-efficient AI and AV applications.
Company Size
201-500
Company Stage
Series D
Total Funding
$822M
Headquarters
Boston, Massachusetts
Founded
2017
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- June 2026 NVLink Fusion partnership opens hyperscaler deployment paths immediately.
- Guide DR samples in Q4 2026 can convert evaluation kits into orders.
- Open Compute Project CPO initiative, launched June 2, 2026, legitimizes Lightmatter’s architecture.
What critics are saying
- Broadcom, NVIDIA, and Ayar Labs compress Lightmatter’s pricing and design-win window.
- ASE and Amkor packaging yields determine volume ramps; any defect delays 2026 shipments.
- If hyperscalers standardize on pluggables or Broadcom optics, Lightmatter becomes a niche laboratory vendor.
What makes Lightmatter unique
- Lightmatter’s Passage platform validated 1.6 Tbps per fiber by June 2026.
- NVIDIA NVLink Fusion selected Lightmatter photonics on June 3, 2026.
- Guide DR and vClick target rack density and CPO manufacturability simultaneously.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Life Insurance
Disability Insurance
Health Savings Account/Flexible Spending Account
Unlimited Paid Time Off
Flexible Work Hours
Remote Work Options
Paid Vacation
Paid Sick Leave
Paid Holidays
Sabbatical Leave
Hybrid Work Options
Stock Options
Company Equity
401(k) Retirement Plan
Wellness Program
Mental Health Support
Gym Membership
Phone/Internet Stipend
Home Office Stipend
Commuter Benefits
Training & Development
Conference Attendance Budget
Professional Development Budget
Family Planning Benefits
Fertility Treatment Support
Adoption Assistance
Childcare Support
Elder Care Support
Relocation Assistance
Employee Referral Bonus
Tuition Reimbursement
Professional Certification Support
Mentorship Program
Meal Benefits
Employee Discounts
Company Social Events
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↓ -1%1 year growth
↓ -2%2 year growth
↓ -1%Lightmatter, a photonic computing specialist, has joined NVIDIA's NVLink Fusion ecosystem to deliver high-performance optical connectivity for AI infrastructure. The company will provide Co-Packaged Optics and Near-Packaged Optics products compatible with NVIDIA's optical and SerDes technologies. Lightmatter's bi-directional optical link architecture will create a unified platform for semi-custom AI factories whilst reducing fibre and connector requirements by 50%. The technology enables semi-custom XPUs to connect with NVIDIA switch silicon through Lightmatter's products, creating seamless high-bandwidth connectivity for chips from various suppliers. The partnership combines Lightmatter's Passage CPO solutions with NVIDIA's NVLink Fusion architecture. Analysts view this collaboration as a critical milestone in the maturation of co-packaged optics, providing hyperscalers with a blueprint to overcome traditional I/O bottlenecks and scale AI clusters.
Lightmatter has unveiled Guide DR, a high-density laser network interface card that quadruples rack density compared to conventional external laser small form factor pluggables. The liquid-cooled LNIC relocates the light source from the faceplate into the chassis, solving scaling bottlenecks whilst leveraging existing cooling infrastructure. Built to OCP NIC 3.0 dimensions, a single Guide DR module can support up to 51.2 Tbps of aggregate bandwidth. Four modules in a 1 RU switch tray enable 204.8 Tbps of switching bandwidth, eliminating the need for larger 4 RU chassis with liquid-cooled lasers. The module supplies 200 mW of optical power per fibre across up to 64 fibres, driving 256 lanes at 200G each, with zero front-panel footprint. Guide DR will begin sampling in Q4 2026.
Lightmatter, a photonic computing company, has appointed Roy Kim as Vice President of Product to lead deployment of its photonic interconnect platform. Kim brings over 15 years of AI infrastructure experience from Google, AMD and NVIDIA. At Google since 2021, Kim served as Director of AI Infrastructure Product Management. He previously led Data Center GPU Product Management at AMD and spent eight years at NVIDIA in AI and high-performance computing roles. At Lightmatter, Kim will oversee product roadmap, management, marketing and strategy. The appointment follows significant product launches, including the Guide light engine in January and the Passage L20 optical engine in March. Lightmatter's technology aims to eliminate data bottlenecks in AI data centres through photonic interconnects.
Lightmatter has achieved a record-breaking 1.6 Tbps throughput per fibre with its Passage Co-Packaged Optics chiplet, marking a significant milestone in AI interconnect performance. The technology, developed in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, uses a 16-wavelength DWDM architecture and delivers up to eight times more bandwidth per fibre than existing solutions. The silicon-proven platform combines Lightmatter's photonic engine with Qualcomm Technologies' 112G PAM4 optical SerDes chiplet, addressing interconnect bottlenecks limiting AI model scaling. The architecture reduces power consumption whilst enabling connectivity for next-generation processors and switches, with Passage L-Series photonic engines on track to deliver 100 Tbps and beyond. The record-breaking Passage L-Series photonic interconnects are now available through evaluation kits for lead customer testing.
Lightmatter has unveiled vClick Optics, the industry's first detachable fibre array unit for co-packaged optics advanced packaging. The technology enables high-volume manufacturing of 3D CPO-enabled chips by allowing manufacturers to verify optical engines before final integration, reducing yield loss risks. vClick Optics achieves insertion loss below 1.5 dB and supports high-bandwidth Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing for 32-100Tbps optical interconnects. The technology integrates SENKO's connector solutions with Lightmatter's photonic technology and is compatible with advanced packaging flows from major foundries. Developed in partnership with ASE and SENKO Advanced Components, vClick transforms permanent fibre attachment into a plug-and-play solution. Lightmatter will showcase the technology at the Optical Fiber Communication conference in Los Angeles from 15-19 March 2026.