Optical Communication Engineer

Job Title: Optical Communication Engineer

Location: Herndon, VA - Herndon, VA 20171 US (Primary)

Would you enjoy working with a collaborative team of engineers to design and build satellite based optical communications laser terminals including optical inter-satellite links (OISL) and direct to earth links. Fibertek is looking for an optical communication engineer to join our Herndon, VA team to help pave the way for tomorrow's advancement in space exploration. You will embrace a team atmosphere while being empowered to make decisions in your area of expertise.

As an optical communications engineer, you will be responsible for designing and building optical space terminals. Work includes optical space lasercom design, hand‑on building space flight optical flight terminals, and conducting performance and environmental verification testing for space. Design and work with some of the smartest minds in engineering actively involved in current high-profile NASA and DOD missions. You will use your direct hands‑on experience to support the build, alignment, and performance characterization of laser communication terminals, build space fiber lasers, and develop optical pointing and tracking systems.

Activities include coordinating and performing formal acceptance and qualification testing across multiple concurrent projects with a mix of short‑duration flight programs and long‑duration technology maturation programs.

Experience and expertise required:

• BS in Physics, Optical engineering or other related engineering specialties with a minimum of 3 years direct hands‑on designing, building, and characterizing optical systems.
• Efficient at developing and executing on complex optical alignment methods.
• Understanding of opto‑mechanical, thermo‑optic tolerance and stability.
• Knowledge of laser theory and industry best practices associated with fiber laser systems including continuous wave, pulsed, and high peak power fiber lasers.
• Ability or interest in building fiber lasers.
• Ability to design and execute experiments validating communications system performance and correlate the results with the expected performance.
• Strong communication and documentation skills for efficient multidisciplinary coordination

Desired qualifications:

• Experience or ability to work within an aerospace environment is a plus including environmental test capability of hardware before/after vibration and inside a thermal vacuum chamber.
• Experience with modeling and simulation of optical systems using industry standard tools such as MATLAB, MATHCAD, ZEMAX or equivalent software tools
• Ability to develop innovative solutions to complex challenges demonstrating ingenuity and creativity