About the Role
A Canadian sovereign defence and advanced optics manufacturer is standing up a dedicated thin film coating services business in Waterdown, Ontario, and is hiring an Optical Coating Design Manager to lead its coating design and engineering. The business supplies advanced optical coatings into defence, aerospace, space, quantum technology and high performance commercial optics, including military EO/IR systems, SWIR, MWIR and LWIR optics, laser systems, precision imaging, hyperspectral imaging, night vision and space optics. This is a confidential search. The client is named once a candidate reaches interview stage.

What You Will Do
You will own optical coating design from the customer's spectral requirement through to production. You will turn customer specifications into manufacturable multilayer designs, choose the right materials and deposition process, take new designs through development and qualification, and lead the engineers and technicians who build them. You report to the President and work alongside an experienced, highly qualified technical team.

Key Responsibilities

Design multilayer optical interference coatings to customer specification, including AR coatings, high reflectors, beam splitters, dichroics, edge, bandpass and notch filters, neutral density filters and polarizers

Lead development of SWIR, MWIR and LWIR coatings on germanium, silicon, zinc sulfide, zinc selenide, sapphire and chalcogenide glass

Set the coating design methodology, tools and standards for the team, and own design reviews and the transfer of designs into production

Select materials and deposition processes across magnetron sputtering, PARMS, ion beam sputtering, ion assisted deposition, electron beam evaporation, PECVD and DLC





Lead customer technical discussions and support quotations and proposals for new coating designs

Lead metrology and test across spectrophotometry, ellipsometry, film stress analysis, optical scatter, environmental testing and MIL qualification testing

Work with production to drive first pass yield, scrap reduction and process stability, and own coating documentation and technical records

Mentor and develop coating engineers and technicians

Represent the business at SPIE, Photonics West and defence conferences

Must Haves

Proven optical thin film coating design experience at a commercial optical filter or optical coating manufacturer

Strong command of optical coating design methodology and thin film design software

Hands on experience taking coating designs into production on sputtering, evaporation or ion beam deposition systems

Experience leading coating engineers or a coating team

Optical metrology and film characterization

Eligible for registration under the Canadian Controlled Goods Program

Able to work on site in Waterdown, Ontario, or willing to relocate

Nice to Haves

Infrared coating development for defence EO/IR programs

High volume optical filter production

ISO 9001 and AS9100 environments

Statistical process control and lean manufacturing

Degree in Physics, Optical Engineering, Materials Science, Engineering Physics or a related field, an advanced degree is not required

Experience standing up a current coating line

What's on Offer
A competitive base salary with a quarterly performance bonus that is not capped, tied to the division's results. You lead coating design for a new defence optics business, reporting directly to the President of a growing Canadian manufacturer, with support for conferences and professional development.

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📌 (Confidential) Optical Coating Design Manager (Ontario)
🏢 moreng
📍 Ontario