Packaging Mechanical Design Internship - Summer 2027

Location: Mountain View, CA Department: Internships

Lightmatter is leading the revolution in AI data center infrastructure, enabling the next giant leaps in human progress. The company invented the world’s first 3D-stacked photonics engine, Passage™, capable of connecting thousands to millions of processors at the speed of light in extreme-scale data centers for the most advanced AI and HPC workloads.

Lightmatter raised $400 million in its Series D round, reaching a valuation of $4.4 billion. We will continue to accelerate the development of data center photonics and grow every department at Lightmatter!

If you're passionate about tackling complex challenges, making an impact, and being an expert in your craft, join our team of brilliant scientists, engineers, and accomplished industry leaders.

Lightmatter is (re)inventing the future of computing with light!

About this job

In this internship, you will build tools that automate how Lightmatter creates and checks the mechanical drawings behind our advanced photonic packages. As a member of the Packaging team, you will build a toolset that generates substrate and package drawings and runs GD&T sanity checks on them. The capability you build will be used on all upcoming substrate and package tapeouts, so your work will go into real product development from day one. You will also work on experiments that feed into a fundamental understanding of coupled thermal-structural-optical physics.

You will be mentored by experienced packaging engineers while learning how package stack-ups, tolerancing, and drawing standards come together in leading-edge products for AI and high-performance compute. You will also see how drawing quality affects assembly, optical alignment, and reliability.

Responsibilities

Build tools to automate the creation of substrate and package drawings from package design data, reducing manual CAD and drafting effort.

Develop automated GD&T sanity checks that catch common drawing errors before release, such as missing or inconsistent callouts, datum scheme issues, and tolerance conflicts.

Work with packaging, substrate design, and system engineers to capture drawing requirements, templates, and conventions, and turn them into repeatable workflows.

Validate your tools against existing released drawings and iterate based on feedback from engineers using them.

Plan and execute physical DOEs, including test setup, measurement, and data analysis, to build fundamental understanding of coupled thermal-structural-optical physics.

Requirements

Currently pursuing a BS or MS in Mechanical Engineering or a related field.

Coursework in Engineering Drawing, Manufacturing Processes, Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer, Engineering Mechanics, Strength of Materials, Design of Machine Elements, and Computational Design.

Programming proficiency in Python (or a similar language) for scripting, data processing, and automation.

Familiarity with CAD tools such as SolidWorks or Creo.

Hands-on prototyping experience through coursework, capstone projects, research labs, or personal projects. Experience building, iterating, and validating physical assemblies is strongly valued.

Willingness and curiosity to learn from an exciting team!

Preferred Qualifications

Exposure to Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) and tolerance analysis concepts, including ASME Y14.5.

Internships, capstone, thesis, or research projects involving precision mechanical assembly, optical systems, or microelectronics packaging.

Experience using AI/ML tools or LLMs to build design automation workflows, such as automating tolerance analysis, CAD scripting, FMEA generation, or simulation post-processing.

Our internship hourly rates are a standard pay determined based on the position and your location, year in school, degree, and experience.

Hourly Rate in USD

$43—$47 USD

Benefits

Comprehensive Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)

Retirement Savings Matching Program

Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)

Generous Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)

Paid Family Leave

Short Term & Long Term Disability

Training & Development

Commuter Benefits

Flexible, hybrid workplace model

Equity grants (applicable to full-time employees)

Benefits eligibility may vary depending on your employment status and location. Lightmatter recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, veteran status, and other protected status as required by applicable law.

Export Control

Candidates should have capacity to comply with the federally mandated requirements of U.S. export control laws.