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 recent 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 new 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 (Hamilton)
🏢 moreng
📍 Hamilton