Senior Optical Designer

Senior Optical Designer | DELFT / HYBRID TNO Design · Full-time Delft, Netherlands Posted on Jul 28, 2026 About this position With a background in optical physics or engineering, you will be an optical designer within the Optics department, which consists of 60 colleagues, with whom you will work closely. You will also be in regular contact with optical manufacturing, system engineers, thermal and mechanical engineers, and calibration and integration specialists from the Opto-mechatronics, Semiconductor Equipment Lifetime/Metrology, Quantum Technology and Space Systems Engineering departments. Customers include ITER, Airbus, NASA and ESA. See more of the TNO Unit High Tech Industry and the Optics Group. What will be your role? As an optical designer you will be initiating and executing the optical design process for optical systems for imaging and illumination. This process ranges from requirements discovery and budget allocation together with the System Engineer through paraxial and nominal design to a final, toleranced design with an accompanying alignment plan. The ability to perform straylight, polarization, diffraction, STOP (structural, thermal and optical performance), and cost analyses is also essential to the role. You will also be expected to lead a small team of designers on bigger projects, coach more junior members, and support the knowledge development of the Optical Design team as a whole, creating as well as implementing innovations in optical design. You will regularly and intensively discuss and challenge results, progress, deviations and possible improvements with the team and the project manager. What we expect from you As an optical designer you will be responsible for the design of high end optical systems. For this role you will work a lot with colleagues from different disciplines. It is important that you collaborate smoothly, proactively keep stakeholders up-to-date, and that designs and analyses are...

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