Optical Engineer, Precision Instrumentation

About Astera Astera is a private foundation on a mission to steer science and technology toward a better future. We believe the coming years will bring an era of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement as exponential progress in AI converges with central advances in other fields to accelerate innovation. This inflection point provides an unparalleled opportunity to fundamentally rethink the institutions, systems, and tools that drive progress. We have committed a $3.5B endowment to that work and fit the form of our support to the function it serves: grants, investments, and in-house research programs. We accept meaningful risk in the research we back and expect some of it to fail because transformative ideas are rarely the ones already proven. Our projects, and the foundation itself, operate like high-velocity startups, with a high performance bar and competitive compensation to match. We are searching for leaders who are compelled by the challenge of driving high-impact change in the way science is funded, conducted, and communicated. You can read more about our mission, vision, and programming at astera.org/vision . Company Overview Astera Neuro seeks to understand and engineer consciousness. We believe consciousness is the process by which the brain builds a coherent internal model of the world and the self. We aim to understand this model and to develop the technologies to write experience directly into the brain. By combining large-scale neural recording, causal perturbation, and brain-based AI, we seek to move neuroscience from observing correlates of experience to engineering it. The same tools carry direct therapeutic promise for neurological and psychiatric diseases that alter perception, thought, and sense of self. Because the science and tools required do not yet exist, we are assembling a founding team of neuroscientists, theorists, and engineers to create them. We do high-risk, high-reward science in a well-resourced, collaborative environment with competitive pay, and share everything openly under Astera's Open Science Policy. Position Summary Reading and writing complex neural activity patterns with light, via two-photon imaging and two-photon optogenetics, is one of the principal ways Astera Neuro will pursue this mission. You will design and build the optical systems our experiments depend on, most of which don’t exist commercially. Working directly with scientists and industry collaborators, you will develop a design, build it, and iterate until it works for the experiment. Some projects are well specified from the start; others begin as a rough idea that takes shape as you build. The work crosses mechanical design, fabrication, electronics, and optics, often within a single project. You do not need a background in neuroscience to apply; we are looking for world-class generalists who have built precision hardware in demanding industry settings, and who pick up the science as they go. You will own complex instruments end-to-end and help drive technical direction. What You’ll Do Design precision optical systems for neuroscience experiments, such as large field-of-view, high-speed two-photon imaging and photostimulation microscopes. Develop an advanced miniature two-photon microscope capable of simultaneous imaging and photostimulation in freely moving animals. Build electronics, control hardware, and software that interface the optical systems with data acquisition and the rest of the research stack. Who You Are Required: PhD, MS, or BS with 3-12 years of experience in optical engineering, biomedical engineering, physics, or a related field. Graduate work or research experience is a plus but not required. A world-class generalist and hands-on problem-solver who has built precision hardware in a high-precision industry, ideally medical devices, robotics, aerospace, semiconductor capital equipment, or commercial or academic scientific instrumentation. You have designed and built hardware that other