Principal/Lead Systems Engineer (Optics)

About the Company

Cnuic Technologies is a stealth-mode deep-tech company in Edinburgh, developing next-generation optical systems that will redefine precision manufacturing and nanoscale engineering. Backed by leading venture capital funds and UK innovation grants, we have the runway to solve exceptionally hard hardware problems. Our fast-moving, collaborative team gives exceptional engineers the resources and freedom to do their best work.

About the Role

As a principal-level Member of Technical Staff, you will own the system design of our technology as it moves from lab demonstration to a robust, manufacturable product, bringing optics, opto-mechanics, electronics, thermal management and control together into one coherent system. The role is hands-on across the design desk, cleanroom and lab, from requirements and architecture through trade-offs, integration, verification and qualification. The challenges mirror those in packaging quantum and precision photonic systems: holding alignment through thermal cycling and vibration, controlling noise, drift and stray light, and fitting it all into a compact, stable and serviceable envelope.

Key Responsibilities

• Requirements & Architecture: Decompose requirements into optical, opto-mechanical, electronic, thermal and software specifications, and own the architecture to detailed design.
• Performance Budgets & Trade Studies: Own budgets for throughput, wavefront and pointing error, alignment, noise, drift and SWaP, and lead trade-offs to a manufacturable design.
• Interface Management: Define and control subsystem interfaces (optical, mechanical, thermal, power, signal and control) and maintain interface control documents.
• Integration & Packaging: Lead integration of lasers, optics, detectors, electronics and mechanics into compact, robust assemblies: tolerancing, alignment, materials, bonding.
• Verification & Qualification: Lead integration, verification, validation and qualification (IVVQ): test plans, thermal, vibration and shock testing, and traceability to requirements.
• Risk & Design Decisions: Spot risks early, run de-risking experiments and prototypes, and make sure key decisions are made, recorded and communicated.
• Grant-Funded Work Packages: Lead systems engineering work packages on grant-funded projects, working closely with partners, suppliers and academic collaborators.
• Technical Leadership: Keep designs coherent across disciplines and aligned with the system, and support engineers as they develop their systems thinking.

About You

You combine strong optics, systems engineering discipline and real hardware-building instincts, equally at home with an error budget, a design review or an optical assembly in the lab.

Core Attributes & Startup Readiness

• Systems Thinking: You see how a change in one discipline ripples through the others and turn complex problems into clear, prioritised decisions.
• Comfortable with Ambiguity: You move quickly from concept and lab demonstration to robust, integrated systems, even when the path is not yet clear.
• Initiative: You spot bottlenecks early and help solve them.
• Communication Excellence: Excellent written and verbal skills, bridging physicists and engineers across disciplines and turning complex trade-offs into clear decisions.
• Adaptability: You stay focused and energised as priorities shift with new test data.

Technical Expertise

• Core Optical Background: Degree or PhD in physics or optical engineering; sound grasp of geometrical and Gaussian optics, beam propagation, interference and polarisation.
• Systems Engineering Practice: Proven lifecycle experience: requirements, architecture, interface control, design reviews, risk management and IVVQ.
• Opto-Mechanics & Packaging: Hands-on tolerancing, kinematic mounting, alignment, bonding and materials, and how thermal expansion and vibration affect optics.
• Multi-Disciplinary Integration: Packaging optics, electronics and mechanics together, e.g. in quantum technologies (atomic clocks, sensors, trapped-ion or neutral-atom systems), photonics, lasers, space or defence optronics, or precision instruments.
• Laboratory Experience: Extensive cleanroom and lab work building low-noise optical systems, managing thermal and environmental stability, and characterising performance.
• Electronics & Control Awareness: Enough knowledge of laser drivers, detectors, signal chains, temperature control and feedback loops to specify, integrate and debug them.
• Modelling & Data Analysis: Python and/or MATLAB for system modelling, performance budgeting, test automation and data analysis.

Desirable Skills (Plus Factors)

• CAD & Analysis Tools: SolidWorks or similar CAD, thermal and structural (modal) FEA, and optical design software such as Zemax OpticStudio or CODE V.
• Environmental Testing & Qualification: Thermal cycling, vibration and shock testing, ideally under defence, space or other regulated frameworks.
• Design for Manufacture: Moving prototypes into repeatable production, including design for manufacture, assembly and test.
• Systems Engineering Tools & Standards: Model-based systems engineering (e.g. SysML), requirements tools, INCOSE practice or ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288.
• Photosensitive Materials: Photosensitive polymers, specialised glasses and photoresists, and their effect on system design and process control.

Don't meet every point? If you match most of these, we would still love to hear from you.

Benefits & Compensation: Highly competitive pay, ESOP, comprehensive life insurance, and a modern office with space for focus, collaboration and recharging.

Cnuic Technologies is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and are happy to discuss any adjustments you need during the process.