Photonics Account Manager

Are you passionate about turning complex customer engagements into seamless, high-trust partnerships? At Lightium, we're pioneering next-generation photonic integrated circuits (PICs) built on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN), and we're looking for a Photonics Account Manager to serve as the backbone of our customer relationships, from purchase order entry through interfacing with our R&D team to long-term production agreements.

Position Summary
In this role, you'll join our Commercial Team, reporting to the CRO, and take ownership of the customer journey from project onboarding through delivery and after-sales expansion. You'll run structured customer touchpoints, coordinate across our internal operations and design teams, and ensure every MPW run is delivered on time, keeping every customer up to date on project status. Your work will be the bridgehead between Lightium's technical execution and our customers' confidence in Lightium as its prime photonics foundry partner.

Key Responsibilities
Customer Journey Ownership: Lead major customer engagements with Lightium’s foundry services, from kick-off and design submission to DRC report, regular update meetings, as well as shipment, invoicing, and after-sales support. Ensure customers always know where they stand thanks to your remarkable organization and communication skills.

Run Management & Internal Coordination: Track deliverables and open items across multiple simultaneous runs. Serve as the single customer-facing point of contact for run status, routing all technical questions to the appropriate internal resource, and closing the loop with the customer. Maintain tight alignment with our R&D Team and Operations Team through regular internal syncs. Keep CRM records tidy and up-to-date across all active engagements.

Process Building & Continuous Improvement: Design, document, and optimize Lightium’s internal business processes that make our customer journey scalable. Create best practices and standard operating procedures (SOPs) across our tools (CRM, Customer Portal, PLM, ERP, etc.) so that the approach defined today scales to a larger team tomorrow.

Customer Portal Ownership: Contribute to shaping, developing, and maintaining Lightium’s customer portal in collaboration with internal DevOps to ensure fully traceable data sharing with customers, such as PDK, technical updates, presentations, shipments, delivery notes, etc.

Industry & Relationship Development: Build trusted and durable relationships with customer-side program managers, heads of photonics, and engineering leads. Represent Lightium and expand your network at related tradeshows. This position requires regular international travel to tradeshows, conferences, and customer visits. While Lightium offers flexible working hours, this position requires regular meetings outside standard European office hours to meet with customers in different time zones.

What You’ll Bring
Educational Background: An advanced degree (Master or PhD) in Photonics, Engineering, Physics, or related technical field. Business or project management training is a plus.

Experience: 3–7 years in technical sales, account management, customer project or program management or customer success in a semiconductor or photonics environment. A foundry or contract manufacturing background is a strong advantage. Demonstrated track record managing multiple simultaneous customer engagements with complex technical deliverables and tight timelines.

Technical Skills: Sufficient photonics or semiconductor literacy to hold a credible conversation with a customer's engineering team. You will not need to design photonics chips, but you need to understand what a DRC violation, an insertion loss spec, or a fabrication yield figure means in context.

Organization: Exceptional organizational discipline: you track open items, you follow up, and nothing falls through. You treat up-to-date folders and information as a professional standard rather than an administrative burden.

Communication: Strong customer-centric communication: You translate complex internal status into clear, professional customer-facing language and documents into condensed information without losing accuracy.

Collaboration: You know how to get things done leveraging your indirect leadership skills, whether that is pulling a status update from a process engineer, aligning with the ops team on a shipping timeline, or getting a design review prioritized. You are experienced in interfacing with external parties, such as fab partners and OSATs, and can communicate across cultural differences.

Adaptability: The ability to thrive in a fast-paced startup environment, demonstrating flexibility, ownership, and resilience in the face of change. You are comfortable operating in environments where processes are still being built, and you actively contribute to their development.

Language Skills: Fluency in English is required. German, French, Mandarin, or another Asian language is a plus.

What We Offer
Competitive compensation and benefits package, including an employee stock option plan (ESOP), fully-covered Pillar Two, and generous vacation.

A unique opportunity to lead a cutting-edge manufacturing initiative in the rapidly growing field of photonics.

A collaborative and innovative work environment where your contributions will shape the future of telecommunications, datacom, and beyond.

Final Thoughts
We'd love to hear from you if you're passionate about building new tech from the ground up and thrive in a collaborative and result-driven environment. Become a key player in an early-phase startup and join a motivated and energetic team. You will have the unique opportunity to create, grow, and develop your professional skills at a fast pace. Lightium is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.