Chief Architect - Optical Communication Terminals

Chief Architect - Optical Communication Terminals

About Skyloom  Skyloom, an IonQ company, is a telecommunications company founded with the mission to develop, deploy, and operate one of the fundamental pieces of tomorrow’s space communication infrastructure to provide data transport services on a planetary scale. If you have a strong sense of purpose, focus, urgency, and willingness to compete—or if working on space lasers excites you—join our team to develop the future generation of space communication technology.

Location: This role will be based at our Broomfield, Colorado, office, with the option to work a few days a week remotely.  Travel: Up to 5% Job ID: 1621

The Role We are seeking a highly skilled and innovative Chief Architect to join our team. This position reports directly to Skyloom's VP of Engineering as a member of the Engineering & Operations leadership team.

As Chief Architect, you will lead the architecture, design, and development of next-generation Optical Communication Terminals (OCTs) for government and commercial space applications. You will drive system architecture, optimize end-to-end optical communication performance, and contribute to innovation in areas including free-space optical communications, adaptive optics, beam steering, and laser propagation. This role also provides technical leadership across multidisciplinary engineering teams while helping shape the future of Skyloom's optical communications products.

Chief Architect with Free Space Optical Communication Terminal Expertise

As a Chief Architect, you will design, implement, and optimize free-space optical communication terminals across government and commercial customers. You will analyze and improve system performance metrics—such as wavefront error, SNR, and BER—while contributing to innovation in areas like atmospheric turbulence mitigation, adaptive optics, and laser propagation. 

This role also offers leadership opportunities, including guiding projects, collaborating across disciplines, and contributing to R&D shaping next-generation OCT products.

Candidate Profile The ideal candidate has led the architecture and development of Optical Communication Terminals (OCTs) or Free Space Optical (FSO) communication systems for commercial or government space applications. You bring deep expertise in optical communications system architecture with hands-on experience developing complex optical communication systems. Direct experience with Optical Inter-Satellite Links (OISLs), LEO optical networking, and high-speed optical communications (100 Gbps or greater preferred) is strongly desired.

Responsibilities Lead engineering activities for an optical communications payload from concept through launch 

Define, analyze, and validate system and subsystem requirements for space environments 

Collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop integrated communication solutions, focusing on system architecture, performance, and reliability.

Derive quantified requirements for optical communication terminals using analytical techniques, numerical modeling, and bench-top testing.

Conduct hardware/software validation of optical communication systems and subsystems

Provide technical support for integration and troubleshooting of optical systems and develop root cause analysis for products exhibiting non-conformances in the optics subsystem.

Analyze large amounts of laboratory data for validation and improvement purposes.

Provide clear and rigorous presentations/reports on the subjects listed above, effectively communicating with a broad range of cross-functional teams.

Communication & Teamwork Skills Own critical design review processes, ensuring quality, completeness, and compliance 

Lead system-level test planning, verification, and compliance analysis 

Collaborate across multidisciplinary teams (RF, software, FPGA, integration, quality, operations) 

IonQ is hiring for this role on CareerPlace.

Apply on the company website through IonQ.

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