Hardware Engineer
Build cutting-edge electronics for photonic AI systems! Design, test, & qualify high-speed hardware in a fast-paced start-up!
🔎 Job Overview
As a Hardware Engineer at Salience Labs, you will play a crucial role in creating and testing the electronics that power our innovative hybrid photonic-electronic systems. As an early member of our team, you will directly contribute to our mission of bringing cutting-edge photonic products to high-performance compute systems, particularly those used for AI. This role offers a dynamic mix of system design, PCB design, system bring-up, and qualification, with a portion of hands-on lab work at our Oxford office.
✏️ What you'll be doing
- Detailed hardware design, including specification, simulation, schematic capture (using Altium), and component selection. PCB layout experience is a strong advantage.
- Bringing up and testing new hardware in the lab, focusing on the electronic components and their interaction with photonic elements.
- Diagnosing and resolving issues during hardware bring-up and testing.
- Thoroughly characterizing new electronic systems and their integration with photonic components.
- Characterizing the mechanical and thermal properties of the systems and their impact on photonic performance.
- Qualifying electronic systems for production, collaborating with external test houses as needed.
👀 What we're looking for
- 3+ years of experience in high-speed digital or analogue design, encompassing high-speed discrete analogue-to-digital conversion, high-performance FPGAs, and high-speed digital interfaces (including Ethernet and DDR).
- 3+ years of experience in bringing up and testing new electronic systems.
- Proficiency in diagnostic engineering, including strong rework skills.
- Comfort working both independently and within small, multidisciplinary teams.
- Strong technical, organisational, and time management skills to translate requirements into successful hardware implementations.
- Drive, motivation, and flexibility to thrive in a fast-paced start-up environment.
✨ Even better if you
- Have experience with PCB layout.
- Have experience working with external vendors for layout, manufacturing, assembly, and qualification.
- Have experience characterising mechanical and thermal properties of electronic systems.
- Department
- Hardware
- Locations
- Oxford, United Kingdom
- Remote status
- Hybrid

About Salience Labs
Salience is a leader in photonic solutions targeting connectivity for AI data center and financial trading infrastructure.
Founded in 2021 and backed by over a decade of research from the University of Oxford in the UK and University of Münster in Germany, Salience’s innovative developments in photonic switching technology enable high-speed, ultra-low latency networking fabrics that remove infrastructure bottlenecks for AI workloads.
Already working at Salience Labs?
Let’s recruit together and find your next colleague.