About us

Aquila is a fast-growing startup developing dynamic, wireless optical energy networking to power sectors underserved by traditional grid infrastructure—think electric aircraft charged in-flight that never have to land… or mines bustling with cool robotics and powered by wireless energy networks—the possibilities are endless! We're backed by some of the best investors in the world, such as Blackbird, Possible and Icehouse, and we're working with fantastic partners to develop novel and exciting capabilities.

We believe in the power of teamwork and collaboration. We are a dynamic and supportive team of Eagles who share a passion for pushing the boundaries of what is possible. We're looking for exceptional people driven to power the future by solving first-class problems with world-class engineering. Everyone owns their work end-to-end.

At Aquila, we believe in shaping the role around the candidate and the team. As such, if there's a domain you do not fit into, please do not hesitate to apply anyway!

The role

As a laser systems engineer at Aquila, you will own our laser energy delivery systems end to end. This means calibrating, initialising, and testing our laser systems to perform as required to facilitate production readiness.

You will be responsible for implementing a laser energy delivery system with safety layers, interlinks, and interlocks to ensure safe and effective energy delivery to power Lightway Sentry, the first free-space optical power-beaming product to launch. Lightway Sentry is a drone that can fly forever to establish aerial awareness and save lives in critical infrastructure, surf life-saving, and defence.

The role spans all elements of laser system operations, testing, and certification, including high-power laser systems, characterisation of various laser elements, collaboration with external test houses to certify that accessible radiation is controlled and safe, and much more.

Who we're looking for

Aquila seeks a highly skilled laser systems engineer to join our team. Successful candidates will

• Self-teach and learn on the job. We are doing something entirely new, so we must find out together and learn.

• Bring new technical insights and best practices from the industry into the company to help us learn.

• Contribute to the high-level systems and product architecture to ensure development contributes to the product requirements.

• Develop end-to-end solutions for fast and performant calibration, testing and operation of our laser power delivery systems.

• Maintain high levels of communication with our team regarding requirements, timelines, risks, and priorities for launching our product from a certification standpoint.

• Collaborate with our team to interface (or develop) these solutions into an overlaying Lightway energy networking platform.

Responsibilities

• Implement laser-based safety interlinks and interlocks for laser energy delivery.

• Engineering optical calibration and alignment processes

• Build, test and iterate on physical experiments and prototypes to validate safety under reasonable scenarios — undertaking laser test programs at high-energy

  • We will place high expectations on you in this role, as we are not planning to productionise unsafe or insufficiently tested hardware

• Write technical documentation and communicate findings and challenges to the team.

• Collaborate with external test houses for safety certification.

We love candidates with the following qualifications/aptitudes. Still, you don't need to meet them all — if you have a strong work ethic and a voracious hunger to solve first-class problems through implementing world-class technology, we want you on our team.

• Evidence of exceptional skill in physics or a related field

• Strong knowledge of optical and laser safety features — such as free space optics, optomechanics, fibre optics, fibre lasers, optical cavities and laser curtains — with the ability to design relevant subsystems.

• Experience working with lasers and photovoltaics

• Proficiency in optical simulation and design software.

• Signal processing and detection

• High-power lasers/photonics/optoelectronics knowledge, including safety standards

• Optical simulation

Above all else, we hire candidates who deeply connect with

• Our Values

And are aligned with

• What we look for at Aquila

Aquila Perks & Benefits

• Everyone is an owner. In addition to excellent base compensation, every 'eagle' owns equity in the company, so we all benefit from our hard work and future success. Everyone is given a unique and epic eagle avatar upon signing the contract to join Aquila.

• Generous paid parental leave. We offer eight weeks of paid caregiver leave and an additional eight weeks of paid leave for the birthgiver.

• Relocation budget & support. Support for interstate or overseas team members and their families (including pets!)

• Flexible working hours and location. While we often enjoy shooting lasers around—with the utmost safety—in our fully decked-out laser facilities, if there are days when we can work from anywhere, then we feel free to work from anywhere!

• Generous Personal Leave. At Aquila, we recognise that sometimes you need time off to recuperate, look after your mental health, or deal with an emergency. We put unlimited (within reason) personal leave in place to empower you to bring your best self to work every day, and you are always paid for days taken off as personal leave.

• We care about our people: At Aquila, we don't focus on what our people can do for us; we focus on what we can do for our people. As part of our commitment to our people, we provide an annual $2k budget for side projects, gizmos and gadgets you want to develop, skills you want to learn, and ways you want to grow outside work.

• Company-wide social events: monthly birthday celebrations, offsite hiking and/or skiing through beautiful Australian and Aotearoa landscapes, annual end-of-year celebrations, and much more!

• Great, decked-out office! An inclusive community and culture in a welcoming office—with lasers and cutting-edge hardware

• A variety of social clubs. We encourage all our Eagles to build the culture with us and share what they love by creating social clubs across the business. From rock climbing clubs to skiing and volunteering, we constantly seek ways to learn and engage with each other.

If you're a budding world-class laser systems engineer hungry to make a massive impact, we want to hear from you! Aquila welcomes applicants from all backgrounds and has around 1/3 female representation on our team. Join our team and help us build an infinitely scalable energy network that powers a more abundant, limitless, and sustainable future.