Chief Engineer (Optical Comms)
About Apolink
Apolink is building the first-ever backward-compatible data relay constellation in low Earth orbit. By enabling efficient data aggregation and relay through our hybrid RF-optical inter-satellite link (ISL) architecture, we support scalable and resilient space infrastructure across commercial, federal, and defense applications.
About The Role:
The Chief Engineer (Optical) is the company’s technical lead for optical communications across our LEO data relay constellation. They own the optical architecture, requirements, link design, and verification, and lead technical decisions with our optical terminal vendor. The vendor handles terminal manufacturing, while this role remains hands-on with analysis, integration, and testing. This is a sole-contributor leadership role.
Responsibilities:
Own optical ISL and feeder-link architecture: wavelength plan, modulation and coding, aperture and divergence sizing, data rate vs range tradespace.
Develop and maintain end-to-end optical link budgets, including coherent receiver sensitivity, PAT margin, platform jitter, point-ahead, Doppler, stray light, fade statistics, and BER against real
