Photonics Systems Engineer

Photonics Systems Engineer (Founding Team | Part-Time → Full-Time)

Location: Silicon Valley / Southern California / Remote

Odissey is an early-stage aerospace startup (in stealth) building next-generation directed energy infrastructure to enable persistent, autonomous operations at scale. We are looking for a Photonics Systems Engineer to join our founding team and help develop high-power photonic systems that don’t exist today.

This is an early, high-ownership role. You can contribute part-time initially (while employed or in school), with a clear path to full-time when we close our financing round. 

This is an opportunity to work on deeply technical, high-impact problems alongside a world-class team building next-generation aerospace infrastructure. We are actively engaging with government and commercial stakeholders and are preparing for a near-term system demonstration.

Why This Matters

Modern defense, space, and autonomous systems are fundamentally limited by energy. Persistent, autonomous operations are critical for modern defense and disaster response missions: from distributed logistics to ISR across infrastructure-poor environments.

Today’s systems: UAVs, distributed sensors, remote infrastructure, are constrained by battery life, fuel logistics, and operational overhead. Endurance is measured in minutes or hours when it should be measured in days or months. There is no existing solution that enables continuous airborne or remote operations without significant downtime, recovery cycles, or logistical burden.

We’re building the missing layer: wireless, distributed energy infrastructure.

What We’re Building

We are building a full-stack directed energy platform designed to deliver low-cost, reliable power for applications ranging from national security to in-space infrastructure. Our system is a software-defined, hardware-enabled platform: a vertically integrated architecture that combines command-and-control software with advanced energy transmission, autonomy, and sensing systems.

Our team includes serial entrepreneur, photonics experts, hardware engineers, designers, and U.S. Air Force veterans.

We are developing a reconfigurable wireless power distribution network enabled by proprietary photonic power beaming technology.

At the core of the system is our Directed Energy Unit (DEU), a modular platform capable of transmitting ~1 kW of optical power at 1064 nm over ~1 km to laser photovoltaic receivers. This enables persistent, distributed energy delivery for autonomous systems.

The Role

You will design and build photonic systems that operate at the edge of what’s currently possible.

• Architect high-power laser and photonic subsystems 
• Model and optimize beam propagation, efficiency, and stability 
• Work across optics, controls, and software to integrate full-stack systems 
• Contribute directly to prototype builds and live demonstrations 
• Help define the technical foundation of the company 

This is not a narrowly scoped role, you will operate across system boundaries and make decisions that shape the product.

Who You Are

• BS/MS/PhD (or current graduate student) in EE, Physics, Optical Engineering, or related field 
• 2-10 years of experience in photonics or laser systems 
• Deep expertise in at least one of: 
  • Fiber lasers, solid-state lasers, or integrated photonics 
  • Optical power scaling and thermal management 
  • Phase/frequency noise, coherence, and beam quality 
• Comfortable moving from theory → simulation → hardware 

How You Work (Startup Mindset)

• You default to ownership and move quickly 
• You’re comfortable with ambiguity and solving problems from first principles 
• You care about building systems that work in the real world, not just in theory 
• You want to be early on something that could define a category 

Compensation

• Equity-only (initially) 
• Converts to full-time, salary + equity upon financing (in progress) 

If you’re excited about building breakthrough photonic systems and contributing to a mission with real-world impact, we’d love to hear from you. Email me at steven@odisseyspace.com