Staff Researcher, Product Performance and Quality

Barco is a global technology leader that develops networked visualization solutions for the Entertainment, Enterprise, and Healthcare markets. Our solutions help people to enjoy compelling entertainment experiences, they foster knowledge sharing and smart decision-making in organizations, and help hospitals provide their patients with the best possible healthcare.

Barco Labs Vancouver (a.k.a. MTT Innovation) is a cinema technology startup that joined Barco in 2016. Our expertise is in the exciting field of Computational Optics, which combines precision optics and sophisticated algorithms to deliver imaging and display capabilities previously not possible. As an example, we developed a cinema projector that can show movie content with viscerally brighter highlights and shadow detail due to our ability to spatially redistribute the illumination in real time.

We are proud to continue our startup spirit and get-it-done attitude with the mandate within Barco to bring new Computational Optics technologies to market. Our Vancouver team is a mix of prototype development researchers with skillsets in Electronics, Software, Algorithms, Optics, Mechanics, Imaging, Automation and from diverse backgrounds across the world.

We are now looking for a Staff Researcher, Product Performance and Quality to develop a framework for simulation, testing and analytics with the goal of optimizing the yield, quality and reliability for our new computational projector product. This is a senior technical role that requires a combination of optical, mechanical, electronic and software know-how and less about process methodologies such as six sigma and lean.

Key Responsibilities:

• Refine achievable product specifications by analyzing the various subsystems (esp. optics and algorithms) and their contributions to the overall system performance
• Build a full system model that captures a diverse range of subsystem parameters including component tolerancing, camera calibration results, digital timing sequences, etc then identify the parameters with greatest impact on performance and quality
• Develop overall system tests to both validate and refine the system model as well as provide ground truth analytics of system performance
• From the overall tests + system model, derive subsystem tests to drill deeper on quality as well as enable simpler isolated tests during production

• Take ownership of the overall quality and product specs portfolio for the display/imaging prototypes while working closely with a team of optics, electronics, mechanical and software engineers
• For all modeling, simulations and system testing, implement software projects and code with detailed documentation and revision control
• Provide rigorous reports on the results of system modeling and testing, as well as proposals for further investigation

• Lead the effort on qualification/certification when needed
• Contribute to the roadmap for next generation products by identifying opportunities/tradeoffs in the design, prototyping or production phases of the initial product
• Participate in standards working groups (e.g. IEC TC110 covering displays) to better understand industry concerns as well as identify opportunities for new Computational Optics products

Qualifications:

• PhD or Masters in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Optics, Imaging, or similar
• 5+ years working in a cross disclipinary hardware + software development environment
• Consumer product development involving optical systems is preferred
• Mix of experience in R&D as well as product validation, quality and testing

• Creative mindset to investigate challenging problems and deliver novel solutions
• Attention to detail, and a penchant for verbose but not dry documentation
• Familiar with consumer display, quality and manufacturing standards

• Experience with CAD and Zemax optical design
• Experience with statistical modeling and data science methods for product development
• Fast prototyping ability in Python
• Competent in Linux environment