Staff Engineer (Foundry Operations) at Lumilens (Singapore)

Lumilens· Singapore·1d ago

Role details

Employment

Full-Time

Job description

Core Responsibilities

Foundry/Partner Management: Act as the primary liaison between the internal product/design teams and external semiconductor foundry partners. Coordinate regular operational review meetings to align on technical, business and production deliverables.
HVM Release & Ramping: Manage the transition & release buy-off from New Product Introductions (NPI) phase to HVM. Steer the seamless transition of prototype and derivative processes into high-volume manufacturing (HVM). Ensure OTD & CT improvement.
Yield & Debug Management: Lead technical debug and troubleshooting meetings to resolve customer RMAs, low yields, and process excursions (root cause analysis, effective CA/PA). Manage Design of Experiments (DOE) to improve line stability and process margins.
Quality & Change Management: Own quality management metrics and oversee Process Change Notifications (PCN). Ensure all product releases and tool changes comply with fab standards and regulatory frameworks. Collaborate with foundry quality assurance to ensure the required quality standards. Participate in fab audit. Embrace defect-free mindset in production.
Process Integration: Evaluate process parameters, monitor Statistical Process Control (SPC), and develop FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) for new or custom sites/processes.

Education: Bachelor’s degree or higher in Electronics, Electrical Engineering, Microelectronics, Mechanical, or Automation Engineering.
Experience: 5 or more years of direct experience in wafer fabrication (preferably in 12-inch/300mm environments), fab process engineering, yield analysis, or semiconductor foundry external operations.
Technical Knowledge: Deep understanding of semiconductor device physics, process integration, cleanroom operations, and various process modules impact to yield (e.g., Etch, Lithography, CVD, PVD). Preferably with experience in Silicon Photonics.
Soft Skills: Exceptional cross-functional leadership, critical decision-making abilities, and strong communication skills to manage external vendors and internal stakeholders.

Culture: Fast-paced startup environment with deep technical expertise; mission-driven focus on enabling the future of AI
Work policy: In-office (HQ San Jose, CA with Bengaluru, India as major hub) [builtin.com]
Perks: Opportunity to work on cutting-edge photonics, robotics, and AI manufacturing; direct impact on world’s largest AI infrastructure
Engineering culture: Heavy emphasis on silicon photonics, hardware design, robotics automation, and system-level architecture. Teams are led by veterans from Cisco, Juniper, Meta, Lumentum, Coherent.

One-liner: Lumilens designs and manufactures next-generation photonic interconnects to massively scale AI compute infrastructure.
Entity Type: Private (Series B – led by Accton Technology; prior Series A of $30M from Mayfield and Spark Capital)
Headquarters: San Jose, California, USA
Founded: 2024
Founders: Ankur Singla (CEO), Samuel Liu (VP Products), Ritesh Kapahi (VP/GM India), Dave Friedman (VP Operations)

Primary industry: Photonics / optical interconnects for AI data centers
Target customers: Large-scale AI providers and hyperscale data center operators (B2B, Enterprise)
Mission: “To rapidly innovate in photonics and connectivity architectures to enable the massive scaling of compute infrastructure required to deliver the full potential of AI.”

Photonic Interconnects (Scale-Out & Scale-Up): High-density, low-latency optical links that enable cluster-to-cluster and direct GPU-to-GPU connectivity. Supports 100x higher quantity of GPU direct connections than legacy approaches.
- Type: Hardware (silicon photonics modules) + integrated manufacturing
Automated Manufacturing Platform: End-to-end custom robotics and AI-optimized production processes to maximize yield, quality, and supply-chain flexibility.
- Type: Service / Manufacturing capability (in-house)

Valuation/Market Cap: Not publicly available
Key Metric: Total funding – $30M Series A (June 2024); Series B led by Accton Technology (amount undisclosed)
Notable Investors/Partners: Mayfield, Spark Capital, Accton Technology
Growth Signals:
- Headcount grew 287% YoY (54 employees as of mid-2025) [linkedin.com]
- Operations in 8 countries: USA, India, Thailand, Poland, Singapore, Czechia, South Korea, Malaysia
- 48 active job postings (+23.1% monthly growth) [linkedin.com]
- Leadership team with deep photonics/networking experience from Cisco, Juniper, Meta, Lumentum, Coherent

In-house silicon photonics development – full control over design and supply chain
Systems-level expertise – can partner on both scale-out and scale-up architectures
Manufacturing automation – robotics + AI processes enable faster innovation, higher quality, and predictable deployment
Standards-based interconnects – easy deployment into existing infrastructure
Manufacturing anywhere – supply-chain continuity and scalable manufacturing

Enable massive scaling of AI infrastructure by overcoming electrical/copper limitations with advanced photonics
Disaggregate GPUs to mitigate power and density challenges in data centers
Expand manufacturing capacity globally and continue to automate production
Align product roadmap with industry standards to accelerate adoption

Sources

lumilens.com – Company overview, mission, leadership, products
lumilens.com/company – Vision, investors, leadership team
builtin.com – Career page, employee count, year founded, office policy
linkedin.com – Headcount, funding details, geographic/department breakdown, job trends, talent sources
jobs.ashbyhq.com – Current job openings (48 listings)