Senior Manufacturing Engineer – Photonics Manufacturing & NPI
PsiQuantum · Milpitas, CA
- Level
- Senior
- Team
- Manufacturing
- Degree
- Required
- Experience asked
- 8+ years
- Industry
- Industrial
- Posted
- Today
The role in 30 seconds
A senior manufacturing role at PsiQuantum (industrial) in Milpitas, CA. Design, qualify, and optimize tooling, fixtures, workstations, and specialized assembly equipment.
- They ask for
- 8+ years · degree required
- Tools it names
- 5S, Root cause, SPC, FMEA, Control plans, MSA / Gage R&R
Read from the posting. The full description is below.
From the plant jobs report · week of November 2, 2026
Manufacturing Engineer roles in California: typical posted base $112k–$168k.
Median of the low and high ends of 147 live postings that list pay, out of 388 manufacturing engineer openings in California, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.
California plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →
How this role compares
Against 387 other live manufacturing postings in California.
- Base pay
- Not listed in this posting
- Experience asked
- More than usual (8+ vs 5+)
Typical $110k–$157k, from 127 postings that list pay.
Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.
Skills these teams ask for most
- ✓ Tooling 52%
- ✓ New product launch 47%
- ✓ Root cause 38%
- Automation 35%
- CATIA / NX 27%
- Machining 27%
✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.
Stands out: this posting asks for 5S, SPC, Control plans, MSA / Gage R&R, which few similar roles mention. If you have it, lead with it.
At a glance
Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.
How to get in at this plant
Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.
- 1
Pick 2–3 people on the Manufacturing team at PsiQuantum
We found 1 person at this company and state: 1 in this kind of role. Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. See them ↓
- 2
Send a short, curious note
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Write to Hong → (free) - 3
Turn a reply into a short call
Questions worth asking about this team:
- What does a normal week look like on your team?
- Is the work mostly new product launches or sustaining existing lines?
- How much time do you spend on the floor versus at a desk?
- How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
- 4
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If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.
- 5
Bring proof to the interview
One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.
This plant: PsiQuantum in Milpitas
13 other open roles at this site · 1 person we found in manufacturing roles at PsiQuantum.
- Quantum Characterization, Verification, and Validation Engineer · Quality
- Senior Electronics Systems Integration & Validation Engineer · Quality · Senior
- Senior System Integration & Optical Validation Engineer · Quality · Senior
- Cryostat Equipment Engineer · Manufacturing
- Production Technician · Production · Technician
- Fiber Assembly Process Engineer (hiring from Associate to Senior levels) · Process · Senior
Full description from PsiQuantumAs posted on their careers site.ShowHide
Job Summary
This role serves as the manufacturing engineering owner responsible for transitioning advanced photonic hardware from Research & Development into pilot manufacturing, production, and eventual high-volume manufacturing.
Working closely with Process Engineering, Design Engineering, Test Validation Engineering, Supply Chain, and Operations, you will develop scalable manufacturing processes for hardware and subassemblies incorporating photonic integrated circuits (PICs), precision fiber optic assemblies, electro-optical systems, and cryogenic hardware supporting PsiQuantum's quantum computing platform.
This position requires extensive hands-on experience with precision optical assembly, fiber optic manufacturing, cleanroom operations, and New Product Introduction (NPI), while establishing manufacturing processes that meet quality, reliability, throughput, and cost objectives.
Responsibilities
- ◆Lead manufacturing process development for PIC-based photonic hardware, fiber optic assemblies, electro-optical hardware, and precision opto-mechanical systems from R&D through pilot production and manufacturing scale-up.
- ◆Serve as the Manufacturing Engineering lead during New Product Introduction (NPI), bridging research prototypes into robust, production-ready manufacturing processes.
- ◆Develop scalable manufacturing methods supporting increased production volumes while maintaining quality, reliability, and optical performance.
- ◆Collaborate with Process Engineering and Design Engineering using DFM/DFA principles.
- ◆Develop and optimize manufacturing processes for precision photonic hardware incorporating PICs.
- ◆Own precision fiber optic manufacturing processes including fiber stripping, cleaving, fusion splicing, handling, routing, connectorization, inspection, and strain relief.
- ◆Develop manufacturing processes for optical packaging, precision optical alignment, electro-optical integration, and final assembly.
- ◆Support cleanroom manufacturing and assembly/integration of cryogenic hardware.
- ◆Design, qualify, and optimize tooling, fixtures, workstations, and specialized assembly equipment.
- ◆Establish and maintain workstations, calibration, equipment maintenance, and preventive maintenance schedules.
- ◆Drive 5S and visual management initiatives.
- ◆Develop manufacturing documentation including work instructions, process flows, travelers, tooling documentation, and training materials.
- ◆Support production through troubleshooting, root cause analysis, corrective actions, and engineering changes.
- ◆Drive Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) focused on yield, throughput, quality, cycle time, ergonomics, and cost.
- ◆Develop process controls, inspection methods, acceptance criteria, PFMEAs, Control Plans, SPC, DOE, MSA, and process validation.
- ◆Lead manufacturing readiness activities and support Manufacturing Readiness Reviews (MRRs) and Production Transfer Gate Reviews.
- ◆Prepare and transfer mature manufacturing processes to Contract Manufacturing (CM) partners.
Required Qualifications
- ✓Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, or related discipline.
- ✓8+ years of manufacturing engineering experience supporting complex photonic, semiconductor, optical, precision electromechanical, or other high-reliability products.
- ✓Dem
Show full description ↓Show less ↑
PsiQuantum's mission is to build the first useful quantum computers: machines capable of delivering the breakthroughs the field has long promised. Since our founding in 2016, our singular focus has been to build and deploy million-qubit, fault-tolerant quantum systems.
Quantum computers harness the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems that even the most advanced supercomputers or AI systems will never reach. Their impact will span energy, pharmaceuticals, finance, agriculture, transportation, materials, and other foundational industries.
Our architecture and approach is based on silicon photonics. By leveraging the advanced semiconductor manufacturing industry, including partners like GlobalFoundries, we use the same high-volume processes that already produce billions of chips for telecom and consumer electronics. Photonics offers natural advantages for scale: photons don't feel heat, are immune to electromagnetic interference, and integrate with existing cryogenic cooling and standard fiber-optic infrastructure.
That approach has since been tested at the highest level of scrutiny the U.S. government applies to emerging technology, and it has held up. In 2025, PsiQuantum closed a $1 billion funding round that valued the company at $7 billion. In 2026, the U.S. Department of Commerce signed a $100 million Letter of Intent under the CHIPS and Science Act, followed by a $125 million agreement with DARPA under Stage C of its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, PsiQuantum's most valuable U.S. government agreement to date. This year, we also broke ground on our utility-scale quantum computer in Brisbane, Australia, and continued building out our Chicago site. Victor Peng, our CEO, and co-founder Jeremy O'Brien, now Executive Chairman, lead a team and board that reflects how seriously the world is taking this build, joined this year by Intel's Lip-Bu Tan and Atomico's Niklas Zennström.
PsiQuantum also develops the algorithms and software needed to make these systems commercially valuable. Our application, software, and industry teams work directly with leading Fortune 500 companies, including Airbus, Lockheed Martin, Mercedes-Benz, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Mitsubishi Chemical, to prepare quantum solutions for real-world impact.
Quantum computing is not an extension of classical computing. It represents a fundamental shift, and a path to mastering challenges that cannot be solved any other way. The potential is enormous, and we now have the funding, the government validation, and the sites under construction to make it real.