Laser Engineer

Laser Engineer — Fiber Laser Systems Who We Are Aurelius Systems builds laser weapons that shoot down drones. Not simulations. Not proposals.

Real directed energy systems that go downrange. We’re a team of ~20 engineers, military operators, and experts executing against a $151B MDA SHIELD IDIQ contract, field testing monthly on our own 400+ acre range. We shipped more hardware last quarter than most defense startups ship in a year.

Our namesake isn’t an accident. Marcus Aurelius wrote about doing the work in front of you, every day, without excuses. Henry Ford didn’t wait for permission to reinvent manufacturing.

That’s how we operate — small team, unreasonable output, no hiding behind the unachievable. If you’ve been stuck in a role where you design things that sit in slides for 18 months, this is the opposite of that. You’ll see your work fire a laser within weeks of building it.

The Role & Your Impact We need a Laser Engineer who has actually built fiber laser systems — not just modeled them, serviced them, or characterized their output. You’ll own the laser source from fiber to beam. That means designing, building, and field-testing the high-power fiber laser systems that put energy on target.

You’ll work across the full optical chain — pump diodes, fiber combiners, gain fibers, beam delivery optics — and make it all survive real-world conditions. This isn’t a role where you write papers about pulse dynamics or maintain someone else’s laser. You’ll splice fiber, align optics, troubleshoot thermal issues in the field, and watch your system destroy a drone.

The feedback loop between your bench and the range is days, not quarters. Key Responsibilities Design and build high-power fiber laser systems — pump architectures, gain stages, fiber combiners, and beam delivery optics Perform fusion splicing, fiber preparation, and connector termination for high-power fiber assemblies Architect thermal management solutions for laser modules — heat sinking, active cooling, and thermal modeling to maintain beam quality under sustained operation Develop and optimize beam delivery and beam combining systems for maximum power-on-target Select and integrate pump diodes, gain fibers (Yb, Er, Tm), fiber Bragg gratings, and passive optical components Drive hands-on prototyping, assembly, alignment, and field testing of laser systems on our range Characterize laser performance — output power, beam quality (M²), spectral stability, and thermal behavior under operational conditions Perform optical simulations and modeling to optimize designs before you build (Zemax, MATLAB, COMSOL, or equivalent) Design for manufacturability and ruggedization — your systems need to survive transport, vibration, and harsh field environments Integrate laser systems with power electronics, pointing/tracking, and control subsystems Generate optical schematics, BOMs, test procedures, and documentation that meets MIL-STD and ITAR requirements Qualifications 2–7 years building fiber laser systems or high-power fiber-based optical systems — not just using commercial lasers as tools Direct hands-on experience with fusion splicing, fiber preparation, and high-power fiber assembly — you’ve physically built and tested fiber laser architectures Deep understanding of fiber laser physics — stimulated emission, nonlinear effects (SBS, SRS), thermal lensing, and how they limit real systems Experience selecting and integrating pump diodes, gain fibers, couplers, isolators, and fiber Bragg gratings Proficient with optical test equipment — power meters, beam profilers, OSAs, and thermal cameras Comfort with optical simulation tools (Zemax, MATLAB, RP Fiber Power, COMSOL, or equivalent) Familiarity with beam combining approaches — spectral, coherent, or incoherent — is a strong plus Where you probably come from: Fiber laser companies (IPG, nLIGHT, Lumentum, Coherent, TRUMPF), directed energy programs (Lockheed, Northrop, Raytheon HEL), university laser labs that build high-power fiber systems (CREOL, Wyant, MIT Lincoln Lab), or photonics startups where you were hands‑on with fiber laser builds. If you built a MOPA or a high‑power fiber amplifier and can talk us through every splice — we want to talk.

Not a fit if: Your experience is primarily using commercial lasers as tools (laser machining, laser scanning, lidar integration), semiconductor laser fabrication in a cleanroom, or free‑space solid‑state laser design without fiber experience. We need people who build fiber laser sources, not people who plug them in. Education BS, MS, or PhD in Optical Engineering, Photonics, Physics, Electrical Engineering, or related field.

What you’ve built matters more than where you went to school. Soft Skills Extreme bias for action — you’d rather build a prototype tomorrow than model it for a month Rigorous testing mindset — you characterize your own systems before the field does Clear communicator who can work across power electronics, mechanical, and software teams Comfortable with ambiguity and fast iteration in a startup environment Nice-to-Haves Experience with directed energy weapon systems or defense laser programs Background in spectral or coherent beam combining for power scaling Familiarity with MIL-STD standards and ITAR compliance Experience with ruggedized optical system deployment in harsh environments Active security clearance or ability to obtain one Experience with laser safety protocols and high‑power laser operations Why Join Aurelius Systems? Build more in 12 months than most engineers build in 5 years.

We field test monthly. Your work goes downrange, not into a filing cabinet. Career velocity is real.

Erick Brito went from Founding Robotics Engineer to Lead in 12 months. At ~20 people, there are no layers between you and impact — or between you and your next title. Work on a problem that actually matters.

Small, cheap drones are changing warfare. Our laser systems are the asymmetric answer — infinite magazine, cost‑per‑shot near zero, scalable to every base and border. Join the densest defense startup ecosystem in the country.

SF is where the next generation of defense companies are being built. You’ll be in the room with the people reshaping how America builds weapons. How we work: Core hours are Monday–Friday, 9 to 6.

When we’re sprinting toward a demo or field test, the team ramps up — nights, weekends, whatever it takes to ship. When the sprint lands, we ramp down. We don’t manufacture intensity for show.

We go hard when the mission demands it, and we recover when it doesn’t. If you’ve worked at SpaceX or on a racing team, you already know the rhythm. #J-18808-Ljbffr