The Systems Engineering Group will hire a highly qualified Optical Systems Engineer to develop and maintain Natural Seeing/Ground Layer Adaptive Optics (NS/GLAO) technical budgets and requirements relevant to the optical performance of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). Under minimal supervision and reporting to the Project Systems Engineer, the Optical Systems Engineer will prepare and maintain observatory level requirements and technical budgets including the allocation of requirements to subsystems and components, and monitor and evaluate the predicted performance of the Observatory during the design and construction phases. S/he will maintain optical performance estimates relative to a subset of requirements known as Key Performance Parameters (KPPs). Monitoring and updating KPPs will occur in close collaboration with the Wavefront Control and Integrated Modeling teams. The Optical Systems Engineer will also contribute to interface development and participate in the development and execution of verification and validation plans and procedures, in collaboration with the rest of the Systems Engineering team and the engineering teams responsible for delivering subsystems.
The Optical Systems Engineer will work closely with the Chief Scientist, Project Scientist, Instrument Scientist, instrument teams, and wavefront controls group to interpret science requirements and flowing them down into technical specifications.
The Optical Systems Engineer is expected to possess extensive working knowledge of the optical effects in the atmosphere, the performance metrics typically used to characterize a ground-based observatory, and the concepts and algorithms capable of estimating those metrics. The successful candidate will have practical understanding of the physical effects influencing performance, as well as the analytical and numerical models characterizing these effects. While most of the detailed modeling and simulation work will be carried out by dedicated teams, the Optical Systems Engineer must be competent with commercial programming languages and optical design and modeling tools.
This position will require writing reports to summarize work accomplished and to document technical specifications, requirements, and procedures in support of internal and external design reviews. Additional responsibilities will include efficient communication with the systems engineering team, engineers throughout the project, sub-system leaders, and project management.
