Senior Platform & Hardware Applications Engineer (f/m/d)

In this role you enable customer adoption of our photonic interconnect technology. You will guide integration into high-performance systems, from reference designs to validation and production readiness. You work closely with product, optics, packaging, test, and commercial teams to translate complex optical and high-speed challenges into practical solutions. Your work drives customer success and feeds insights back to product evolution. This is a hands-on, cross-functional role with a meaningful impact on scalable, energy-efficient interconnects.

• flexible work culture
• comprehensive health and insurance
• pension
• virtual stock options
• professional and personal development
• inclusive and collaborative environment

• Guide customers in integrating Black Semiconductor products into systems such as switches, NICs, AI accelerators, ASICs, and FPGA-based platforms
• Support bring-up, validation, and debugging including link training, BER validation, interoperability testing, firmware configuration, and system-level issue resolution
• Develop reference designs, application notes, and integration guides covering schematics, PCB design, power delivery, clocking, routing, thermal considerations, and interfaces
• Design and maintain FPGA-based demonstration platforms, evaluation hardware, and software tools
• Collaborate with Product, Optics, Packaging, and Test teams to relay customer feedback and influence product improvements
• Support pre-sales evaluations, customer demonstrations, benchmarking, workshops, and post-sales debug escalations on-site and remotely

• 5+ years in applications/systems/hardware engineering for high-speed semiconductor, networking, or optical products
• Strong FPGA/ASIC bring-up experience including PCB design, RTL/IP integration, embedded software, and toolchains
• Hands-on debugging of high-speed systems with SerDes, oscilloscope, logic analyzers, BERTs, pattern generators, and protocol analyzers
• Solid understanding of optical interconnects, transceivers, CPO, link budgets, NRZ/PAM4, equalization, and high-speed standards (Ethernet, PCIe, CXL, JESD204)
• Strong programming/scripting skills (Python, C/C++) for automation, testing, and documentation
• Excellent customer-facing communication and ability to explain complex hardware and optical concepts
• Familiarity with photonic ICs, advanced packaging, AI infrastructure, and datacenter interconnects is a plus

• excellent communication
• customer-centric problem solving
• collaboration across cross-functional teams
• FPGA and ASIC bring-up
• PCB design
• RTL/IP integration