--- title: 'Optical Engineer (Laser Systems) at Furientis' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/optical-engineer-laser-systems-furientis-los-angeles-z5gvkqxmvm51' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-05' --- # Optical Engineer (Laser Systems) at Furientis - **Company:** Furientis - **Location:** Los Angeles, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-10-23 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-05 - **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/furientis/67caf2db-0461-484b-a7ba-6f5eb81b866d ## Job description America is critically deficient in production of defensive munitions- we currently produce shipborne interceptors in the few hundreds per year while our adversaries are producing offensive threats in the tens of thousands per year. Furientis was started to help solve this problem- introducing a new class of cost-effective, high production rate, interceptor missiles. We're seeking motivated individuals who internalize this problem and are eager to apply their past experience in similar industries (aerospace, defense, automotive/racing, robotics) and out of the box thinking to solve this problem for the US and its allies. ## About the Team The Seeker Team builds the eyes and the targeting logic of our weapon system: a low-cost, mass-producible, multimodal missile seeker that leans on commercial supply chains where they outperform, and vertically integrates wherever possible. On a modern missile, the seeker is 40 to 60% of unit cost and often drives overly long delivery cycles; accordingly, the seeker team is at the tip of the spear for delivering capability to our customers and value to the taxpayer. Seeker design has exactly two real constraints: physics and mission. Nothing else is a show-stopper, only an obstacle to overcome. We are a small, deeply technical team that drives capability through ingenuity and bias for action and ships hardware that flies. This is a wear-many-hats environment where you must be comfortable "building the airplane in flight" and stepping well outside your comfort zone; a narrowly scoped role with clean handoffs is not what this team offers. This is an AI-native team. Through fluent use of cutting-edge agentic coding tools, one engineer here consistently out-delivers a much larger conventional team. You will have opinions about where these tools help and where they do not, provide governance input, and build out an AI-centric workflow from day one. ## About the Role You own the seeker's coherent channel from source to signal: laser illumination, coherent detection, and the active EO path that runs alongside the passive LWIR train. The architecture, the link budget, the receiver, and the bench demonstrations that become flight hardware are yours. You are also the laser transmitters' customer and integrator: you own what they must deliver, namely the transmitter specification, the channel-level proof that bought or built lasers close your link budget, and their integration into the channel. Designing and building the lasers themselves belongs to the Laser Engineer; judging them, specifying them, and making the channel perform with them belongs to you. Shared apertures and anything the passive train touches carry the opto-mechanical engineer's sign-off; the coherent channel's performance carries yours. ## What You'll Do - Architect active EO channels: source, modulation, transmit path, receiver, and detection scheme. - Own the link budget end to end and defend it against measured data. - Write the channel side of the laser transmitter specification and ICD: pulse energy, pulse width, repetition rate, timing jitter, linewidth and coherence, divergence, and the seed format a seeded MOPA amplifier must preserve (seeds are bought off the shelf). The Laser Engineer designs to it; you defend it. - Laser source selection and qualification, near term, off-the-shelf transmitters from wherever expediency and cost win, plus modulators and detectors, and hold the technical vendor relationships for them. - Characterize transmitters as channel components and own their acceptance at channel level: measured energy, jitter, beam quality, and coherence over temperature and life, proving the link closes with real hardware rather than datasheets. - Design and build the coherent receiver: optical, electrical, and the signal chain to a usable measurement. - Integrate the transmitter into the channel: trigger and synchronization, the swap-ready source interface that lets a bought laser be replaced by our own without redesigning the channel, and, with the opto-mechanical engineer, shared apertures, boresight, and stray light. - Take the channel from bench demonstration to a packaging path that survives the flight environment. - Work lasers safely and legally in your own testing: classification inputs, NOHD analysis, and range safety for coherent-channel test events, under the Laser Safety Officer. - Deliver the coherent channel's measurements into the fusion and tracking stack with honest error models. ## Skills We're Hiring For - B.S. in Optics, Photonics, Physics, or Electrical Engineering; M.S. or Ph.D. preferred. - 5+ years of active EO work: ladar, interferometry, laser rangefinders, or free-space optical links. - Laser source fluency: linewidth, coherence, modulation, and the failure modes of each. - Specification, characterization, and integration of pulsed lasers (Q-switched Er:glass and seeded MOPA transmitters) - Design, alignment, and integration of beam steering devices, e.g., Risley prisms, FSMs, etc. - Photodetector fluency at 1.5 µm: PIN and balanced receivers, linear-mode APDs, and Geiger-mode SPADs (noise, bandwidth, and timing, and when each earns its place). - Fiber and free-space bench craft: alignment, isolation, and measurements you can trust, including laser-module qualification measurements (energy, fast-photodiode timing, beam profiling, spectrum). - Radiometry and link budget analysis from first principles. - Working laser-safety knowledge: ANSI Z136.1 classification, NOHD, and range use of Class 1M and above hardware. - Enough signal processing to carry the channel from photocurrent to measurement. - Proficient scripting for instrument control and data processing in Python or similar. - Design-level Zemax; stray-light analysis with FRED, ASAP, or TracePro. Bonus Points For - Eye-safe 1.5 µm transmitter integration: Er:glass rangefinder or designator modules taken from datasheet to qualified hardware. - Semi-active laser or designation experience. - Coherent detection theory and bench practice, heterodyne and homodyne. - Flight or munition-class optical hardware. - Daily use of agentic coding tools (Claude Code or similar) to multiply your output, with examples of what you've shipped. Eligibility & Logistics Location: On-site at our Los Angeles, CA HQ; remote work is not available. Monthly weekend travel for test events and supplier engagements. Clearance: A clearance is not required for this position. Must be a U.S. Person. Equal Opportunity & Export Compliance Furientis is an equal-opportunity employer. To comply with U.S. export control laws, employment is contingent on eligibility to access export-controlled information. ## About Furientis ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Furientis is a defense technology startup building low-cost, production-scalable interceptor missile systems for the U.S. military. - **Entity Type**: Private (Pre-seed) - **Headquarters**: El Segundo, California, USA (operates out of a facility in Playa Vista, Los Angeles) - **Founded**: 2025 - **Founders**: Brody Franzen (CEO) and Aris Simsarian ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Aerospace & Defense / Defense Technology - **Target customers**: U.S. military and defense organizations, particularly naval and ship-based interceptor procurement buyers - **Mission or purpose statement**: "We believe the future of warfare is dictated by production capacity, and our current system of manufacturing critical defensive munitions cannot meet demand." The company aims to build cost-effective defensive munitions at scale. ## Products & Services - **F 1.0 Interceptor Missile System**: A low-cost interceptor missile architected for an annual production volume of 1,000 units per factory. Designed to counter low-cost threats (drones, cruise missiles) that are expensive to stop with legacy systems. Uses automotive-style materials and assembly processes, commercial off-the-shelf components, and in-house solid rocket motors to achieve a cost of ~$250,000 per missile versus the $1–$5 million normally spent per interceptor. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (Private, early-stage) - **Key Metric**: $5M total funding raised (Pre-Seed round, announced May 2026) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Silent Ventures (lead), Bessemer Venture Partners, Multiball Capital, SV Angel, Humba Ventures, BVVC, Liquid 2 Ventures, MVP Ventures, Channel 39 Ventures, Vanderbilt University, Gaingels. Angel investors include founders of Anduril, Armada, and Erebor. - **Growth Signals**: Emerging from stealth with $5M pre-seed; completed six flight tests and ten static-fire tests within its first six months; named a finalist in the Office of Naval Research Tactical Missile Innovation Challenge; actively hiring with 4+ open roles; projected "significant demonstrations" later in 2026. ## Competitive Advantages - **Design for manufacturing from day one**: Unlike legacy primes that spend a year on modeling before building hardware, Furientis runs four-week design cycles with monthly flight tests—a "build fast, test often" approach. - **In-house solid rocket motor production**: Most primes outsource this critical component, creating supply chain bottlenecks. Furientis makes its own, giving it control over the most constrained piece of the supply chain. - **Cost advantage**: Target price is ~$250,000 per missile vs. $1M–$5M for incumbent systems from primes like Lockheed Martin, enabled by automotive-style materials, off-the-shelf components, and simplified assembly. - **Production scalability**: Designed from scratch for a throughput of 1,000 units per year per factory, addressing the core national security bottleneck of ammunition production capacity. ## Strategic Focus - **Scale production**: Move from prototype flight testing to initial production tooling and build-out of a 9,000-square-foot Los Angeles factory. - **Team expansion**: Actively hiring elite engineers across opto-mechanical, perception hardware, and finance roles to accelerate development. - **Demonstrate to the Navy**: Use ongoing flight tests and the ONR challenge to secure a production contract with the U.S. Navy. - **Prove the thesis**: Continue monthly flight tests to validate the cost and performance of its interceptor system. ## Why Work Here - **High-impact mission**: Work directly on solving a critical U.S. national security shortage—the ability to produce defensive munitions at the volumes needed to counter modern threats. - **Fast-paced engineering culture**: Four-week design cycles, monthly flight tests, and a "build and break things" mentality that contrasts with slow, traditional defense primes. - **Elite team and mentorship**: Leadership includes veterans of Virgin Galactic, Virgin Orbit, and Castelion (a hypersonics startup that raised $350M). Advisors/investors include founders of Anduril and Armada—among the most successful modern defense startups. - **On-site in Los Angeles**: Roles are on-site in the Playa Vista / El Segundo area. The office is notably located in Lenny Kravitz’s former studio. - **Early-stage equity**: Joining at pre-seed stage ($5M raised) provides significant ownership potential for early engineers alongside a small, tight-knit team (11-50 employees). - **Active hiring**: As of mid-2026, open roles include Senior Opto-Mechanical Engineer, Perception Hardware Integration Engineer, and Finance Manager. ## Sources 1. [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/furientis) 2. [Fortune (Exclusive launch article)](https://fortune.com/2026/05/14/furientis-missiles-defense-anduril-military-drone-interceptors/) 3. [PitchBook](https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/894465-28) 4. [Fusion42 Profile](https://scout.fusion-42.com/startups/ff72fe16-9489-4f67-ae18-a3c6dd66edd4) 5. 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