Staff Systems Engineer, Architecture & Requirements

Department: CTO Org

Location: Austin, Texas

Compensation: $185K – $215K • Offers Equity

Employment Type: FullTime

About Neurophos

The demand for new data centers and AI compute is rapidly outpacing the planet's energy capacity. Digital solutions are hitting a power wall as we approach the physical limits of traditional silicon. Conquering this bottleneck means rethinking the fundamental architecture of inference compute. The industry's current path can't meet the need, so we're taking a different approach.

Instead of traditional electronic circuits, we use silicon photonics and an active, programmable metasurface to perform matrix multiplications at the speed of light. Our optical cells are 10,000x smaller than traditional photonic components, enabling unprecedented density. By using photonics instead of electricity, our chips become more efficient as they scale. This architecture will deliver up to 100 times the energy efficiency of existing solutions while significantly improving performance for large-scale AI inference.

We’ve assembled a world-class team of industry veterans and recently raised a $110M Series A led by Gates Frontier. Participants include M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund), Carbon Direct Capital, Aramco Ventures, Bosch Ventures, Tectonic Ventures, Space Capital, and others.

Join us and shape the future of computing!

Location: Austin, TX. Full-time onsite position.

Reports To: Chief Systems Engineer

FLSA Status: Exempt

Position Overview

We are seeking a highly skilled Systems Engineer to own the architecture and requirements focus area for our optical vector-matrix multiplication (OVMM) engine. This role is responsible for defining the OVMM signal-path architecture, decomposing product-level requirements into subsystem and interface specifications, and keeping that set of requirements coherent, leveled, and traceable as the product evolves.

You will be the person who turns a product-level ask into a specification that an analog, digital, photonic, or software team can actually design against and who catches interface conflicts before they become integration surprises. If you combine systems-architecture judgment with the discipline to build and defend a structured set of requirements, and you thrive on translating between product intent and subsystem implementation, this role will let you shape how a first-of-its-kind computing platform is specified and integrated.

Key Responsibilities

Primary Responsibilities

• Own and maintain the OVMM signal-path architecture, ensuring it remains internally consistent as subsystem designs and product requirements evolve.

• Translate product- and system-level requirements into subsystem and work-package-level specifications. Maintain a structured, leveled set of requirements with clear ownership and priorities assigned at each level.

• Define and maintain interface specifications between subsystems and disciplines (optics, analog, digital, software). Identify interface conflicts as designs evolve and drive them to resolution.

• Lead architecture trade studies, channel count, TX/RX configuration, aspect ratio, and similar structural choices, quantifying the resulting impact on performance, power, and complexity.

• Define and manage configuration and variant trades across product options, maintaining traceability between requirements and the configurations that satisfy them.

• Lead requirements reviews across functional teams, negotiate scope with Responsible Engineers, and resolve requirement conflicts before they propagate downstream.

Secondary Responsibilities

• Partner with the Signal-Path Performance & Modeling focus area to validate architecture and configuration choices against the quantitative system model.

• Partner with the Calibration, Bring-Up & Verification focus area to ensure requirements and interfaces are verifiable and do not impede bring-up or calibration.

• Maintain requirements-management tooling and documentation (e.g., ticketing systems, version-controlled specification repositories) to keep the requirements set traceable and reviewable.

• Mentor engineers in specification discipline, requirements decomposition, and architecture trade-study methodology.

Qualifications

• MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, or a closely related field, with emphasis on systems engineering or mixed-signal/optical system architecture.

• 5+ years in systems engineering, requirements management, or architecture definition for complex electro-optic, mixed-signal, or communications hardware.

• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain leveled requirements sets, interface control documents, and verification/traceability matrices, and to flow top-level requirements down into defensible subsystem allocations.

• Proven ability to quantify architectural trade-offs (performance, power, complexity, cost) and to make and defend architecture decisions across disciplines.

• Working fluency with signal-path and link-budget models (Python or MATLAB) sufficient to evaluate the impact of a trade study, even where day-to-day modeling is owned by others.

• Excellent written and verbal communication, with the credibility to negotiate and align priorities across Responsible Engineers, functional leads, and executive stakeholders.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with requirements-management tooling (DOORS, Jira, or similar) and version-controlled, machine-readable specification repositories (e.g., Git-based documentation).

• Familiarity with optical or RF communication systems and high-speed mixed-signal architecture.

• Experience defining product configuration and variant management for complex hardware systems.

• Exposure to formal gate-review processes (PDR/CDR-style) across internal teams and external design partners.

• Familiarity with Cadence Virtuoso and Spectre sufficient to review analog implementation against requirements.

What We Offer

This is an opportunity to play a pivotal role in an innovative startup redefining the future of AI hardware. Work on game-changing technology at the intersection of photonics and AI as part of a collaborative, brilliant team. You’ll contribute to a platform that redefines computational performance and accelerates the future of artificial intelligence. Come help us bring this transformative technology to the world.

Benefits

Join a team that invests in your future and your well-being. At Neurophos, we offer:

• 100% coverage of base health plan premiums for you and your dependents, plus HSA contributions.

• Unlimited PTO. No rigid vacation banks, just a focus on delivery.

• 401(k) matching and stock option opportunities to ensure our success is your success.

• Full suite of voluntary benefits, including Dental, Vision, Life, Hospital, Critical Illness, and Accident insurance.

• Personalized Benefits. Choose the plans that fit your life and take the cash back for those that don’t.