Lead Applications Engineer in Sheffield

The Company: Phlux is an award-winning tech start-up based in Sheffield, UK. The company is a “Fabless Photonics Chip Company” founded in 2020 as a spin-out from the University of Sheffield. Phlux designs and supplies the world’s highest performing SWIR detectors and receivers based on our groundbreaking material development that will be at the heart of advanced driver safety features using LIDAR, ultra-fast low latency communication networks, and seeing the invisible with 3D imaging. Phlux is a revenue-generating company with a team of 21 skilled professionals spanning operations, sales and marketing, engineering, semiconductor devices, and finance. Following a $12M Series A funding round, Phlux is now scaling rapidly and seeking passionate individuals to join our innovative team. Our mission is to lead the “opticalization” of the communications and sensing industries for decades to come.

The Role: We are looking to recruit a highly motivated Lead Applications Engineer to build out our world-class applications team. The successful candidate will be an experienced Applications Engineer with a highly technical and detailed approach to customer & product applications. Able to foster tight partnerships with design engineering, marketing, and sales teams and have proven experience within the semiconductor and photonics sector. The successful candidate will be responsible for leading and driving all customer Applications Support of Phlux’s APD detector products, photonics devices and sub-modules. This role is based in our Sheffield office and lab.

The applicant should have excellent organisational and communication skills and be comfortable working independently and as part of a team of engineers, marketing, sales, operations and management.

Responsibilities:

• Lead, mentor and develop a growing applications team supporting global customers.
• Work with Sales, FAE and factory applications team to solve and resolve customers’ technical queries.
• Technical support of existing Phlux products.
• Develop and implement strategies to improve the application engineering process and enhance customer satisfaction.
• Manage and prioritize customer support requests, ensuring timely and effective solutions within agreed SLAs.
• Drive technical engagements, including design reviews, prototyping, and troubleshooting for customers.
• Support new product introductions and drive design-in opportunities with key customers and track the design-in cycle.
• Oversee and participate in the development of applications notes, product training material and sales collateral in conjunction with marketing.
• Develop Reference Design Kits and Evaluation Boards; responsibility for customer delivery of eval kits.
• Opportunity to travel and attend trade shows and travel to customer facilities to demonstrate products/RDKs and support customers (examples are Photonics West in San Francisco, CIOE in Shenzhen, China).
• Conduct lab measurements and experiments as required.
• Become a technical product expert for Phlux’s range of detector and photonic products.
• Provide technical and market application requirements inputs into product roadmap and support technical product definition/contribute to technical datasheets.
• Manage budgets, resources, and staffing needs for the applications team.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• Current Position: Candidate likely to be a Senior Applications Engineer or Applications Team Lead within a semiconductor or photonics hardware company supporting customers globally looking to further their career in a fast-paced start-up environment. Ideally with 7+ years of experience in applications engineering in the Photonics/Semiconductor &/or Data/Telecommunications sectors.
• Technical competency: Experience within Applications engineering, design engineering, evaluation engineering or similar of Detectors/optical components and/or optical communications systems, experience in analogue and mixed-signal semiconductor products; Sensors, electronics and components.
• Problem solving: Logical and methodical approach to fault finding and issue support on products and with customer design-ins. Support RMA activities where required.
• Tools: Adept at using tools for presentation and data visualisation, semiconductor modelling and simulation tools, circuit simulation where required. Use AI tools where appropriate to increase efficiency.
• Cross-Functional Teamwork: Engage with sales, FAEs, Factory Applications, Marketing & Engineering/R&D.
• Education: BSc/BEng/Masters/PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Optoelectronics or Physics.
• Communication: Customer driven attitude and with commercial/market awareness and experience within an interrupt driven role; Strong cross-functional and interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills.
• Technical Familiarity: Device modelling, Photodiodes and Receivers, APDs, Schematic/PCB design, optical sensors and sensing, Laser Range Finding, LiDAR, high speed optical communication systems, OTDR, signal integrity/RF skills, electronics and components, reference design development, knowledge of optical components (e.g. TO-can, Pigtail, ROSA, BOSA).
• Strong analytical and quantitative skills: bias towards data-based decision making.
• Action oriented: works with strong sense of urgency, can manage multiple priorities, takes the initiative.

Success in the Role (First 12 Months):

• Build and scale the applications engineering function.
• Be a technical product expert for Phlux’s range of photonic products.
• Aim to support an agreed targeted value of new product design wins of our Aura product range across automotive LIDAR, geospatial LIDAR, optical fibre sensing and defence applications.
• Developed a sound understanding of the markets, applications, and eco-systems for Phlux’s products.
• Improve customer response times and support processes.
• Deliver reference design kits and evaluation platforms.
• Plan and deliver applications demos at the Photonics West trade show in January 2027.

Benefits:

• Competitive salary based on experience.
• Share options with tax efficient EMI stock options - Own a part of the company.
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holiday.
• 5% employer contribution to pension scheme.
• Relocation package.
• Exciting and dynamic work environment as part of a growing start-up.
• Recruiting referral bonus scheme.

Hours of Work: We work 37.5 hours a week, Monday – Friday. The candidate will be required to be on-site for a minimum of 4 days per week at our offices and lab in Sheffield.