Infrastructure Engineer

Infrastructure Engineer

Cambridge UK

Start date: September 2026 or ASAP

Contract: Permanent full-time role

About us

At Wave Photonics we are building a platform to enable and accelerate the development mass production and adoption of integrated photonics technologies. Integrated photonics will be crucial in enabling a host of applications ranging from energy-efficient communications wearable healthcare sensors rapid diagnostic tools optical tensor processors on-chip LiDAR quantum computing and communication and many more. We believe that many obstacles in developing these technologies can be removed using a combination of simulation statistical modelling and optimisation techniques.

Founded in 2021 we have backing from investors in Silicon Valley the UK and the EU and are contributing to multiple projects funded by Innovate UK. We were also successful in winning a prestigious European Innovation Council Accelerator grant to develop solutions for frontier applications of integrated photonics.

Today we are a team of around 20 people in Cambridge automating PDK design for integrated photonics and building the hub that connects chip designers IP providers and foundries. Behind the product sits a serious compute and data pipeline and it now needs someone to own it.

We are seeking a highly motivated and enthusiastic Infrastructure Engineer to join our team and contribute to our mission in accelerating the growth and adoption of integrated photonics technologies. If youre drawn to deep tech enjoy working where your contributions are visible and want to be part of a team that takes both its science and its culture seriously wed love to hear from you.

Role overview

Your mission is to build reliable cloud-backed HPC infrastructure that our team can run heavy design and simulation workloads on without friction and to take care of security across how we run IT both on-prem and in the cloud. Our compute lives across our own hardware and the cloud unified under Kubernetes with the ability to burst upward when we need it. Your job is to make that platform solid self-service and trustworthy and to keep it secure end to end.

What you will own

• The compute platform Kubernetes across on-prem and cloud run as one coherent system including cloud bursting. Making it easy for the team to submit monitor and debug compute-heavy jobs without needing to understand the machinery underneath.
• Observability Monitoring and alerting that tells you something is wrong before a user does.
• Data infrastructure Reliable well-organised storage and access for large scientific datasets with backups you can trust.
• Security Making sure our environment is secure (RBAC secrets policies zero trust networking)

Our core stack

Kubernetes cloud (DigitalOcean/GCP) alongside bare metal Terraform. Both CPU and GPU workloads.

We want to build things once so they dont demand constant attention: it requires a lot of automation monitoring relevant metrics and designing robust systems. If your instinct on seeing a recurring manual task is to engineer it out of existence you will fit in well here. It is a broad role with a lot of autonomy so you will set the standards and we will trust you to run with them. As the company grows so will the scale of what you are running.

Desired skills and experience

Essential

• Experience running Kubernetes in production ideally including bare metal.
• Cloud-native mindset: you think in Kubernetes and treat on-prem machines as just another part of the cluster.
• Some Linux sysadmin experience to manage our bare metal boxes.
• Comfortable with compute-heavy batch-style workloads.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
• Willingness to take ownership and make pragmatic calls.
• Being able to architecture robust/reliable systems Care about the experience of the people relying on your infrastructure.

Nice to have / Beneficial

• HPC-style job scheduling (Kueue Slurm MPI or similar).
• Experience with large scientific or array datasets.
• Any background in photonics semiconductors EDA or scientific computing.

We are particularly interested in people who can solve complex problems learn quickly and make a meaningful contribution. If you do not meet every requirement but believe you could be successful in the role we would still encourage you to apply.

If you are as excited as we are about the world-changing technologies that will be enabled by integrated photonics and you want to play a key part in it then please get in touch!

Work environment

At Wave Photonics we see a brighter future. We strive towards that goal not only in the technology we develop but as a dedicated and welcoming team who are passionate about working together to make it happen. We see the huge value in creating a team with people from all backgrounds and experiences. Equity diversity and inclusion are vital to our mission and we strongly encourage people of all backgrounds and identities to apply.

Our office in Cambridge serves as the dynamic hub where brilliant minds converge to redefine the future of integrated photonics. Nestled in one of the worlds most renowned academic and technological cities our workspace embodies the spirit of collaboration creativity and cutting-edge exploration. We strive to create an environment where open communication and cross-disciplinary thinking are not just encouraged but celebrated.

How to apply

Please upload a CV by clicking the apply button. There is no need for a formal covering letter. Instead tell us about a piece of infrastructure you have owned and what state it was in when you handed it over.

Salary and compensation

Excellent salary depending on experience.

Company share options plan.

Enhanced annual leave (25 days bank holidays).

In-person working with flexible working options available where possible.

Cycle to work scheme.

All applicants will be notified within 28 days of application.

NO RECRUITMENT AGENCIES PLEASE.