Principal Optical Design Engineer

Full-time position.  

Onsite 5 days a week – Chiswick, London. 

We’re hiring a Principal Optical Design Engineer to own the optical architecture, design strategy, validation approach and production-intent development of HoloMem’s optical system, taking it from initial validated prototypes towards scalable product architecture for our first generation HoloDrive product and subsequent roadmap. 

About HoloMem

At HoloMem, we’re building the next generation of mass data storage hardware; highly efficient, long life, and ultra durable. Our pioneering and patented holographic technology encodes data as light within advanced polymers, enabling a resilient and future fit alternative to today’s short lived and energy intensive data storage infrastructure.

Over the past 24 months HoloMem has graduated from both the Intel Ignite and Deeptech Labs accelerators, been awarded two Innovate UK Smart Grants, closed a seed+ funding round, and most recently deployed a working HoloDrive prototype to a live data centre to prove the robustness of our system.

Off the back of our breakthrough partnership with BDT, the world’s largest tape library manufacturer, we now begin the transition from prototype to product, maturing our validated system into a mass-produced technology platform that enables state of the art data storage performance at scale. We have ambitious plans, and we are now scaling up our West London based team to enable them. Join us.

What You’ll Be Doing

You’ll work across the optical system that sits at the centre of HoloMem’s first product. That means translating system-level requirements into practical optical architecture, modelling lens systems in Zemax, understanding tolerances, building confidence through lab validation, and making sure the design can move from prototype towards design verification, validation and production intent.

This is not a pure research role. We need someone who can work from first principles where required, but who has also seen what happens when optical designs meet mechanical packaging, assembly constraints, supplier capability, tolerance stack-ups and manufacturing reality. You’ll be expected to stay close to the work, not simply direct it from a distance. 

The Specifics About the Role

This role is suited to a Principal Optical Design Engineer who has taken optical systems beyond prototype and understands what changes when a design has to become manufacturable, alignable, calibratable, testable, serviceable and repeatable. 

You should be able to demonstrate the ability to: 

  • Own the optical architecture and design rationale for our first generation product and the roadmap beyond it

  • Lead optical system design from early prototype through engineering verification, design validation and manufacturing line readiness

  • Use Zemax to design, model and optimise lens systems for real hardware

  • Define optical performance budgets, error budgets, tolerance budgets and calibration assumptions

  • Own the optical trade-offs between lens spacing, alignment, encoding performance, packaging, thermal behaviour, manufacturability and cost

  • Govern critical optical design decisions where performance, manufacturability, reliability, calibration, cost and scalability conflict

  • Work hands-on in the lab to correlate simulation with measured optical performance

  • Communicate optical requirements clearly to mechanical, systems and product teams without losing the underlying physics

  • Challenge optical designs where they create unnecessary complexity, unrealistic tolerances, fragile alignment requirements or poor manufacturability

  • Work with suppliers to challenge component tolerances, manufacturability, lifecycle risk and cost-performance trade-offs 

Who You Are

You are comfortable working at the boundary between optical physics, optical engineering and product development. You can reason deeply about lenses and systems, but you also understand that an optical design only becomes valuable when it can be assembled, aligned, calibrated, tested, supplied, serviced and scaled repeatably. 

You are not looking for a role where you only review other people’s work. You still want to design, model, test, debug and improve the system yourself.  

You should be able to act as a technical authority for optical design decisions, guiding optical physicists and engineers through architecture choices, evidence standards, design reviews and risk closure, without needing formal line management authority to have impact. 

Required Experience

  • Significant industry experience in optical design or optical engineering, with clear evidence of owning optical architecture or major optical design decisions in complex hardware products

  • Strong hands-on experience using Zemax for optical design, simulation, optimisation and tolerancing

  • Experience designing lens systems as part of a full optical product, instrument or hardware platform

  • Experience taking optical systems from prototype towards verification, validation or production-intent design

  • Experience defining optical performance budgets, error budgets, tolerance budgets or calibration assumptions

  • Experience defining optical test methods, acceptance criteria or performance evidence

  • Experience working across optical, mechanical and systems engineering boundaries

  • Hands-on lab experience building, aligning, testing, debugging or validating optical systems

  • Understanding of design for manufacture and design for assembly as applied to optical systems

  • Experience working with optical suppliers on feasibility, tolerances, component selection, manufacturability or lifecycle risk

  • Experience with production readiness, quality control or repeatability challenges in optical assemblies

  • Evidence of technical leadership without relying solely on formal people management authority 

Desirable Skills

  • Experience with optical encoding systems or optical data projection systems

  • Experience with microscopes, optical projectors, imaging systems, optical engines or precision instrumentation

  • Exposure to holography, spatial light modulators, laser systems or high-precision optical alignment

  • Experience working in a startup, scale-up or high-ambiguity hardware development environment

  • Exposure to data storage, photonics, imaging, metrology or advanced manufacturing systems

Benefits At HoloMem

  • Competitive salary

  • 25 days annual leave

  • Employer pension contributions

  • Cycle-to-work scheme

  • A collaborative, knowledgeable team working on deeply technical, world-positive problems 

How to Apply

Click apply or send your CV to careers@holomem.co.uk. Show us what you’ve designed, built, or tested. If you’re excited about the mission, even if you don’t meet every requirement, we’d love to hear from you. 

HoloMem is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and are committed to building an inclusive environment for all.

Apply