Job Title: Optical Engineer II
Location: Onsite – Redmond, WA
Duration: 4+ Months (Possible extension)
 
Job Description:
DSR Optical Engineer (CW) Job Description:

• At Client’s Reality Labs Research, our goal is to make world-class consumer virtual, augmented, and mixed reality experiences.
• Come work alongside industry-leading scientists and engineers to create the technology that makes MR, VR, and AR pervasive and universal.
• The Display Systems Research (DSR) team is focused on passing the visual Turing test in AR/MR: making head-mounted displays (HMDs) indistinguishable from reality.
• Our core research involves the identification and construction of new eyeglasses-form-factor devices — informed by human vision science — that cohesively integrate novel display and sensing technologies.
• Recent publications and demos include varifocal displays, near-eye holographic displays, understanding geometric distortions in HMDs, reprojection-free light field passthrough, reverse passthrough, and more.
• We are seeking a Contingent Worker Optical Engineer to help develop mixed reality (MR) and augmented reality (AR) display systems.
• This role requires skills in optical system design and building, knowledge in various optics fields, and experiences with scientific experiments and data analysis.
• An ideal candidate enjoys solving challenging optics problems, refining the quality and precision of the optical system with thorough analysis and experiments, iterating efficiently with detail-oriented and data-driven processes.

 
Must-Have Skills:

1. Lab skills: optical experiments, lasers, metrology
2. MATLAB or Python
3. Understanding in diffractive optics

 
Nice-to-Have Skills

1. Optic simulation tools (Zemax, etc.)
2. Holographic optical element fabrication

 
Responsibilities

• Develop optical components, sub-assemblies, and optical systems for novel AR/MR display systems
• Build and operate automated optical fabrication/metrology systems in the lab environment
• Implement and conduct optics simulations using commercial software or scientific programming languages
• Handle and catalogue optical components and manage lab equipment and environment
• Communicate results with the team and to a larger Reality Labs organization

 
Minimum Qualifications

• BS degree in Optical Engineering, Physics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering or a related technical discipline with 3+ years of experience; OR Master’s degree in Optical Engineering, Physics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related technical discipline with 2+ years of experience; OR equivalent experience.
• Hands-on experience in implementing complex optical experiment systems from concept to benchtop system validation.
• Familiarity with diffractive optics, ray optics, optical metrology and characterization.
• Previous training of optical laboratory, including laser safety, handling/cleaning optics, etc.
• 3+ years of experience with scientific programming language (MATLAB or Python).

 
Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with holographic optical element fabrication or laser interferometer systems
• Experience with optomechanical instruments (e.g. mechanical stages, motion controllers) and metrology instruments (e.g. spectrometer, polarimeter, CCD/CMOS sensors, spatial light modulators, etc.)
• Experience with automation programming in a laboratory setting (instrument interface, motion control, image acquisition, data collection and analysis) using MATLAB or Python
• Experience with writing custom optic simulation software or simulations with commercial software (Zemax, CodeV, Lightools, etc.) to model novel optical systems, and optimize systems using numerical techniques
• Experience with clean room experiments or optical coating/lamination
• Experience with specialty optics, e.g. Bragg volume gratings, diffractive optics, polarization optics, etc.
• Experience with handling and processing of photopolymers
• Proven track record of solving difficult problems and achieving high quality and significant results in optical systems, as demonstrated by first-authored publications at leading workshops or conferences, presentations, journal articles, patents, etc.

 
Story Behind the Need – Business Group & Key Projects:

• Surrounding team & key projects: Major work in Optical Laboratory; participate in research projects with optical system building, fabrication; conduct optical simulation and metrology; handling/cleaning optics
• Outside of current hiring need(s): Will there be additional needs for contractors in the next 12 months? (forecasting)

 
Interview Process

• How many rounds of interviews? 2–3
• Types of Interviews: Technical + Behavioral
• Interview Duration: 30 min – 1 hr

  
 
At SPECTRAFORCE, we are committed to maintaining a workplace that ensures fair compensation and wage transparency in adherence with all applicable state and local laws. This position’s starting pay is: $ 60.00/hr.