Also called: Lidar Engineer, Optical Sensing Engineer
Designs laser scanners that let self-driving cars, robots and drones measure the world in 3D.
You mount a lidar sensor on a test car and drive around a parking lot in the rain. Back in the lab you study the 3D point clouds to see why wet pavement confuses the sensor and adjust the laser timing.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 4 years after high school. Bachelor's in electrical, optical engineering or physics; master's common.
Ways in: 4-year college, Graduate school. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Optical Engineering, Optics & Photonics, Physics, Electrical Engineering.
Growing faster than average. Not tracked separately by BLS; photonics demand is growing with AI data centers, lidar and AR.
Low risk for 10 years. AI interprets lidar data, raising demand for sensors; designing, calibrating and field-testing hardware stays human.
Classes: AP Physics, AP Computer Science, Electronics class, AP Calculus.
Official data: O*NET occupation 17-2199.
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