Senior Optomechanical Engineer
South Park Commons is a community and early-stage venture firm that helps talented founders and technologists move from an idea (-1) to a company (0). It runs a no-cost, no-equity residency program for ideation and exploration, and provides $1M to $10M in funding for founders ready to build venture-scale companies.
About South Park Commons
South Park Commons operates a talent-dense community of technical founders, researchers, and domain experts who test ideas, find collaborators, and build conviction on what to build and how to build it. Its offering spans two stages: a six-month Residency with no cost or equity focused on ideation and exploration, and Funding of $1M to $10M for members ready to build venture-scale companies. Beyond capital, SPC provides learning forums on frontier topics (embodied AI, reinforcement learning, energy-efficient computing, AI in biotech), live programming with industry leaders, partner collaboration from a team of former founders and operators, social scaffolding to counter the isolation of early company building, and up to $1M in credits and perks from partners like Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft, GCP, and AWS. SPC has spaces in San Francisco, New York, and Bengaluru, and its community has produced companies such as Render, Luma Labs, Pilot, Comun, Anthropic, Unit21, and Profound.
Skills
About the Role
You will span the full lifecycle of instrument development, from design and analysis through assembly, integration, and test. You'll interact with cross functional team members, vendors, and partners to drive optomechanical subsystem development for infrared remote sensing instruments, working across many layers of technical depth from individual components through system level.
Requirements
- Ph.D. and 3+ years of experience designing optomechanical hardware for imaging systems; or M.S. and 6+ years industry experience; or B.S. and 8+ years industry experience
- Proficiency in CAD (SolidWorks preferred) for component and assembly design
- Experience with STOP analysis tools (FEA, Sigfit, Zemax) and workflows
- Experience working in a multi-disciplinary environment, with exposure to spacecraft, infrared remote sensing instruments, and imaging systems
- Experience working with precision optical and mechanical metrology equipment
- Experience with system integration and delivery of complex hardware/software systems
- Excellent communication, presentation, and organization skills
- Ability to obtain security clearance strongly preferred
Responsibilities
- Own optomechanical design efforts including concept development, trade studies, and preliminary sizing of hardware at various levels of assembly
- Own subsystem and system-level analyses including STOP analysis, tolerance stackups, and alignment planning
- Support Design for Manufacturing/Assembly (DFM/DFA) efforts to drive continuous improvement and volume production
- Support optical instrument assembly, integration, and test (AI&T) planning and implementation
- Support subsystem and instrument-level testing, including environmental (vibration, thermal-vacuum (TVAC) testing) and system characterization/V&V
- Contribute to continuous improvement of best practices, processes, tools, and methodologies
- Collaborate and communicate with subsystem engineers, analysts, systems engineers, AI&T and production teams, program managers, and external partners
Benefits
- Equity compensation
- Medical insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- 401k retirement plan
- Short & long term disability insurance
- Life insurance
- Three weeks paid vacation for new employees
- 12 paid holidays
- Unlimited sick time
- Paid parental leave