4.8 KiB
Market evidence report — optical-engineer
Source: 57 real job ads (JSearch API, countries: us 57), extracted into the MSSQL evidence store; as of 2026-07-18. This report contains extracted, aggregated facts only — no ad text is reproduced (copyright / platform terms).
Seniority distribution
| Seniority | Ads | Share |
|---|---|---|
| mid | 32 | 56 % |
| senior | 18 | 32 % |
| n/a | 3 | 5 % |
| junior | 2 | 4 % |
| lead | 2 | 4 % |
Tools — full market ranking
| # | Item | Ads | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zemax | 24 | 42 % |
| 2 | Code V | 17 | 30 % |
| 3 | MATLAB | 15 | 26 % |
| 4 | Python | 15 | 26 % |
| 5 | FRED | 10 | 18 % |
| 6 | LightTools | 4 | 7 % |
| 7 | COMSOL | 3 | 5 % |
| 8 | Microsoft Excel | 3 | 5 % |
| 9 | Solidworks | 3 | 5 % |
| 10 | Zemax OpticStudio | 3 | 5 % |
Hard skills — full market ranking
| # | Item | Ads | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | data analysis | 22 | 39 % |
| 2 | optical system design | 20 | 35 % |
| 3 | optical design | 11 | 19 % |
| 4 | stray light analysis | 7 | 12 % |
| 5 | technical documentation | 6 | 11 % |
| 6 | optical engineering | 5 | 9 % |
| 7 | optical testing | 5 | 9 % |
| 8 | system integration | 5 | 9 % |
| 9 | tolerance analysis | 5 | 9 % |
| 10 | fiber optics | 4 | 7 % |
| 11 | troubleshooting | 4 | 7 % |
| 12 | alignment | 3 | 5 % |
| 13 | electro-optical design | 3 | 5 % |
| 14 | lens design | 3 | 5 % |
| 15 | manufacturing | 3 | 5 % |
| 16 | optical alignment | 3 | 5 % |
| 17 | optical analysis | 3 | 5 % |
| 18 | optical modeling | 3 | 5 % |
| 19 | problem solving | 3 | 5 % |
| 20 | remote sensing | 3 | 5 % |
| 21 | simulation | 3 | 5 % |
| 22 | system modeling | 3 | 5 % |
| 23 | system validation | 3 | 5 % |
| 24 | technical analysis | 3 | 5 % |
Methods — full market ranking
| # | Item | Ads | Share |
|---|
Responsibilities — full market ranking
| # | Item | Ads | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | data analysis | 6 | 11 % |
| 2 | system integration | 5 | 9 % |
| 3 | optical system design | 4 | 7 % |
| 4 | manufacturing support | 3 | 5 % |
| 5 | product development | 3 | 5 % |
| 6 | system testing | 3 | 5 % |
Regional breakdown
Corpus note: 57 relevant ads in total — below the 100-ad target for a fully reliable ranking. Percentages above should be read as indicative.
US (us)
57 ads.
Top hard skills:
- data analysis — 39 % (22 ads)
- optical system design — 35 % (20 ads)
- optical design — 19 % (11 ads)
- stray light analysis — 12 % (7 ads)
- technical documentation — 11 % (6 ads)
- optical engineering — 9 % (5 ads)
- optical testing — 9 % (5 ads)
- system integration — 9 % (5 ads)
- tolerance analysis — 9 % (5 ads)
- fiber optics — 7 % (4 ads)
Top tools:
- Zemax — 42 % (24 ads)
- Code V — 30 % (17 ads)
- MATLAB — 26 % (15 ads)
- Python — 26 % (15 ads)
- FRED — 18 % (10 ads)
- LightTools — 7 % (4 ads)
- COMSOL — 5 % (3 ads)
- Microsoft Excel — 5 % (3 ads)
- Solidworks — 5 % (3 ads)
- Zemax OpticStudio — 5 % (3 ads)
Seniority: mid 56 % · senior 32 % · n/a 5 % · junior 4 % · lead 4 %
UK (gb)
Insufficient evidence — 0 ads (minimum for a regional ranking: 30). No ranking is reported for this region.
EU/DACH (de, at, ch, nl)
Insufficient evidence — 0 ads (minimum for a regional ranking: 30). No ranking is reported for this region.
Job title variants in the market
| Title | Ads |
|---|---|
| Optical Engineer | 6 |
| Principal Optical Engineer | 6 |
| Electro-Optical Engineer, Sr | 2 |
| Optical Engineer (PIC Design & Analysis) | 2 |
| Optical Engineer Senior | 2 |
| Senior Optical Engineer | 2 |
| (Open Application) Optical Metrology Engineer | 1 |
| 2026 Graduate - Optics & Photonics Engineer/Scientist | 1 |
| Associate Electronic and Optical Materials Device Fabrication Engineer | 1 |
| Associate Staff - Straylight Analysis (Optical Engineering Group) | 1 |
| Ciena Optical Engineer | 1 |
| Electro-Optical Engineer (All levels) | 1 |
| Electro-Optical Engineer Senior Stf - Directed Energy | 1 |
| Electro-Optical Manufacturing Engineer | 1 |
| Junior Space Optics Engineer (Metrology & Alignment) | 1 |
| Optical Architect - AI Accelerators | 1 |
| Optical Design Engineer | 1 |
| Optical Engineer Level 2 | 1 |
| Optical Engineer, Advanced Photonic IC Development | 1 |
| Optical Engineer, Amazon Leo for Government, Optical and Opto-Mechanical Engineering | 1 |
| Optical Engineer/Scientist (Ph.D.) | 1 |
| Optical Systems Engineer | 1 |
| Optical Test Development Engineer | 1 |
| Optics Engineer | 1 |
| Optics Engineer EO/IR Sensing & Systems | 1 |
Methodology: entities extracted per ad ({hard_skills, tools, methods, responsibilities, seniority}), normalized, counted as DISTINCT ads per entity; report threshold ≥ 3 ads. Headline sections in skills.md/tools.md use the stricter ≥ 20 % threshold.