Location: Alhambra, CA (Onsite)

Job Summary:

The Senior Manager, Photonics Quality Engineering will lead product quality engineering for Semtech's InP photonics portfolio — gain chips, DFB laser chips, high bandwidth Photodetectors, and related optoelectronic components — supporting coherent and IM-DD optical transceivers for data center and AI infrastructure applications. This role owns product-level quality from device design through customer delivery, partnering closely with fab operations, process engineering, and Semtech's product teams to ensure the combined electronic-optoelectronic-photonic chipset meets the quality and performance demands of hyperscale customers.

This leadership role is critical to our continued market leadership in high-speed optical transceiver solutions, driving quality improvements that directly impact customer satisfaction and business growth.

Responsibilities:

Quality Leadership ( 40 %)

Own product quality strategy for the InP photonics product line — gain chips for tunable lasers used in coherent transceivers, high bandwidth Photodetectors, and DFB laser chips for intensity-modulation direct-detection (IM-DD) links — targeting continual quality improvement activities to drive improved customer satisfaction across hyperscale and AI infrastructure customers.
Define and manage the quality engineering approach across the product lifecycle — new product introduction (NPI), mass production, and end-of-life — for photonics products, ensuring consistency with Semtech's broader quality standards.
Lead quality risk assessments for new photonics product launches, process transitions, and technology integration efforts (e.g., co-packaging and near-packaging optics platforms combining InP gain/laser chips with Semtech TIAs and drivers).
Partner proactively with Business Units and Product Line Management to anticipate photonics quality requirements tied to next-generation product roadmaps.

Customer Quality & Continuous Improvement (40%)

Drive expedient, hands-on diagnosis and resolution of customer-escalated quality issues for photonics products, ensuring resolution within defined SLA targets and maintaining transparent, professional communication with hyperscale customers throughout investigations.
Lead root cause investigations and failure analysis for photonics field returns, partnering with device physics, process engineering, and packaging teams to close corrective actions.
Report quality performance internally and to customers, including quality business reviews (QBRs), reliability qualification summaries, and corrective action status updates.

Process Excellence & Continuous Improvement ( 20 %)

Partner with foundry and contract manufacturing partners supporting InP wafer fabrication to drive corrective action closure (8D/CAPA) and continuous improvement on process excursions affecting photonics product quality.
Partner with Supplier Quality Engineering teams to lead supplier audits and qualification of new photonics material and process sources, ensuring qualification data meets internal and customer-facing quality standards.
Serve as Quality representative on cross-functional product development teams, ensuring photonics-specific failure mechanisms are addressed in DFMEA and design qualification plans from the earliest development stages.

Travel Required: 15% to 20%

Minimum Qualifications:

Bachelor's Degree in Electrical/Electronic Engineering, Applied Physics, Materials Science, Optical Engineering, or related field. Master's degree is a plus.
Solid knowledge of III-V compound semiconductor device physics, with emphasis on InP-based photonic devices — edge-emitting lasers, DFB/DBR lasers, gain chips, and semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs).
Working knowledge of InP epitaxial growth processes (MOCVD/MBE), including material quality assessment and defect management, sufficient to engage credibly with process and fab teams on quality issues.
Solid knowledge of product engineering fundamentals for optical transceiver components, including LIV (Light-Current-Voltage), spectral performance, and optical power characterization test methodologies.
Ability to identify and analyze semiconductor and photonic device failure mechanisms (facet damage, active region defects, grating defects, contact degradation) through structured failure analysis.
Effective communicator with the ability to interface at all levels of the organization and directly with hyperscale customers, possessing strong written and verbal command of English.

Desired Qualifications

Experience with high-speed optical transceivers, datacenter interconnects, or coherent optical communication systems, particularly in the context of 400G/800G/1.6T/3.2T architectures.
Experience in semiconductor or photonics manufacturing quality engineering, with direct ownership of supplier quality management, customer quality interface, or reliability qualification programs.
Proven ability to solve complex technical problems and analyze data using statistical concepts and tools (JMP, Minitab, Python/R).
Exposure to Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma methodologies, ideally Green/Black Belt certified.
ISO 9001 and/or ISO 14001 Lead Auditor certification is a plus
Familiarity with reliability standards for optical components (Telcordia GR-468, IEC standards).
Understanding of co-packaged optics (CPO) and near-packaged optics (NPO) architectures and their quality/reliability implications for combined electronic-photonic chipsets.

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