As part of the PICs@ICFO Strategic Initiative, ICFO coordinates PIXEurope, a flagship Pilot Line funded under the European Chips JU program. With €400 million in investments and a consortium of 20 partners across 11 countries, the project aims to reinforce Europe’s strategic autonomy in photonic technologies and accelerate industrial uptake of cutting-edge integrated photonics. Over the next decade, PIXEurope will enable the transfer of advanced technologies to manufacturing environments, while fostering innovation and scalability across the European photonics ecosystem.

Position Overview:

We are seeking an experienced engineer or research scientist specializing in the testing and characterization of photonic integrated circuits, with strong hands-on experience at die level, wafer level, and packaged level. The selected candidate will be deeply involved in the development and execution of advanced PIC testing methodologies within the PIXEurope project, contributing to both technological development and application-oriented demonstrators.

The position is highly experimental and lab-oriented, ideal for candidates with a solid technical background and strong motivation to work with integrated photonics in a dynamic R&D and pre-industrial environment.

Key Responsibilities:

- Perform optical and electrical testing of PICs at die, wafer, and packaged level, using both manual and automated setups.
- Operate optical benches and test instrumentation including tunable lasers, OSAs, VNAs, photodiodes, RF sources, power meters, and probe stations.
- Develop measurement procedures, automation scripts, and data-analysis workflows to ensure reliable, scalable, and repeatable characterization.
- Conduct extensive wafer-level optoelectronic testing, including operation and maintenance of an automated probe-station, automated optical/electrical alignment, calibration routines, interfacing with equipment vendors for troubleshooting and process improvements, and managing high-throughput data acquisition.
- Collaborate with PIC designers to define and optimize test structures, contribute to Test Design Kits (TDKs), and implement Process Control Modules (PCM).
- Analyze and validate PIC performance, prepare structured testing reports, and support debugging activities across the development cycle.
- Work with application-driven teams (quantum, telecom/datacom, sensing, LiDAR, RF-photonics, etc.) to translate system requirements into test metrics and support qualification in real demonstrators.
- Conduct the reporting of activities on testing.
- Being active part of the activities related to PIC demonstrators ensuring proper integration, testing flow, data consolidation, and communication with project partners.Collaborate closely with fabrication and packaging teams to guarantee performance consistency across the entire PIC development pipeline.

This position will report to Prof. Dr. Valerio Pruneri, Director of the European Chips JU Pilot Line PIXEurope.

PIXEurope is co-funded by the Chips Joint Undertaking and national funding authorities of the Participating States, Spain, Ireland, The Netherlands, Finland, Belgium, Portugal, Poland, Austria, France, Italy, United Kingdom. In particular, it is co-funded by Spain through the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Civil Service under reference CJU-010000-2025-0005, as part of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR).