Principal Systems Engineer -Optical Transceivers

Job Family: General Design Services

Job Profile Title: Principal Design Engineer

Job Posting Title: Principal Systems Engineer – Optical Transceivers

Location / Division Specific Information: CAN - Ottawa/ P05

How will you make an impact?

We are seeking a Principal Systems Engineer to lead the development of next‑generation optical transceivers for hyperscale data center and AI networking applications. This individual will play a critical role in driving system‑level innovation, translating customer and industry requirements into product specifications, and leading cross‑functional teams through product development, qualification, and deployment.

The ideal candidate possesses expertise in optical communications, coherent or direct‑detect optical systems, DSP architectures, electrical and optical interfaces, and emerging data center networking standards. This role requires both technical leadership and strong collaboration across silicon, optics, packaging, firmware, manufacturing, and customer‑facing teams.

As a Principal Systems Engineer, you will define the architecture and technical direction of next‑generation optical interconnect solutions, enabling the massive bandwidth demands of AI clusters and hyperscale data centers. Your work will directly influence product strategy, industry standards, and the future of high‑speed optical networking.

What will you do?

• Define system requirements and product architecture for next‑generation optical transceivers.
• Develop transceiver specifications, link budgets, performance targets, and system trade‑off analyses.
• Lead architecture decisions involving optical engines, DSPs, laser technologies, packaging, thermal management, and host electrical interfaces.
• Evaluate various modulation schemes, lane rates, and optical interconnect architectures to optimize performance, power, cost, and manufacturability.
• Serve as the technical lead transceiver product development, influencing technology roadmaps and strategic investments.
• Mentor engineers across systems, optics, hardware, firmware, and validation disciplines.
• Drive design reviews and resolve complex cross‑functional technical issues.
• Represent the company in customer engagements and industry technical discussions.
• Optical and Electrical System Analysis, including defining and analyzing optical link performance, link budgets, signal‑to‑noise ratio, BER, FEC performance, power consumption, and reliability margins.
• Perform system‑level modeling and simulation of optical and electrical channels.
• Analyze and optimize high‑speed interfaces operating at 200G/lane and beyond.
• Work closely with DSP and ASIC teams to define equalization, FEC, and signal integrity requirements.
• Product Development & Validation, including collaboration with optics, ASIC, packaging, firmware, and operations teams from concept through production release.
• Define validation methodologies and interoperability test plans.
• Drive root‑cause analysis and corrective actions for system‑level performance issues.
• Support customer qualifications, field deployments, and technical escalations.

How will you get here?

Education

• BS degree in Electrical Engineering, Optical Engineering, Physics, or related technical field is required.

Experience

• 12+ years of experience in optical communications, networking systems, or transceiver development is required.
• Demonstrated experience developing high‑speed optical modules is required.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

• Strong understanding of optical communication systems.
• Silicon photonics.
• High‑speed SerDes architectures.
• DSP‑based communication systems.
• FEC and coding techniques.
• Experience with optical standards and interoperability requirements.
• Strong analytical and system‑level problem‑solving capabilities.
• Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills.
• Systems thinking and architecture leadership.
• Cross‑functional collaboration; customer engagement; strategic technology planning; data‑driven decision making; mentoring and team development.

Preferred Qualifications

• MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Optical Engineering, Physics is preferred.

Prior Experience With

• 1.6T PAM4 optical modules.
• Co‑packaged optics (CPO).
• Linear Receive Optics (LRO).
• Linear Pluggable Optics (LPO).
• Silicon photonics integration.
• Advanced packaging technologies.
• Expertise in coding for test and verification in languages such as Python.
• Proven record of technical leadership and architectural ownership of complex products is a plus.

Equal Opportunity Employer Statement: We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or other protected status.

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