Hello, I'm
Aitor López
Hernández
PIC Layout & Photonic Engineer · Lifelong Learner
Hello, I'm
PIC Layout & Photonic Engineer · Lifelong Learner
Have you heard of Ikigai? It's a Japanese concept referring to one's "reason for being" — the intersection of what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. Finding it is said to bring purpose, fulfilment, and even longevity.
Now in my thirties and after five years in academia pursuing my PhD, I'm still on that journey. But experience has given me some clear signposts:
All of this without losing sight of the most important ingredient for happiness: a healthy balance between personal and professional life.
Led the successful launch of PIC Designer, the company's first photonic integrated circuit design product. Collaborated with AI and software engineering teams (6 people, remote), defined the product roadmap alongside business development, and coordinated alpha and beta user-testing sessions. Delivered technical presentations at international conferences and handled reporting to grant administrations.
Developed a comprehensive parametric circuit library of filter architectures using GDSFactory for Cornerstone PDK and SAX, enabling integration with AI-driven photonic design tools. Also built a circuit layout benchmark to assess performance.
Developed a comprehensive testing pipeline for design layouts. Contributed to circuit tapeouts with three top-10 worldwide foundries, designing subsystems and collaborating on mask layout. Utilized OptoCompiler, IPKISS, and Lumerical for advanced photonic circuit design, simulation, and optimization. Represented the company at industry events.
Led design of a Looker Studio dashboard monitoring radio network energy metrics (PySpark, BigQuery, PostgreSQL, Apache Airflow). Contributed to a generative AI bot assistant on Microsoft Teams via prompt engineering and multiprocessing. Simulated 5G object-localization setups using MQTT and Pandas, and helped develop a geolocation algorithm using PostGIS.
Member of the Photonics Research Labs (PRL) group at ITEAM. Research covered automated synthesis of optical filters on photonic waveguide meshes using machine learning and gradient-based optimisation. Published in Nature Communications (2020, 2024), Optics Express (2020), and Journal of Lightwave Technology (2022). Presented at CLEO 2020 and IEEE Photonics Conference 2022. Contributed to the layout of a general-purpose photonic processor — the foundation for the first commercial product.
Sole instructor for a laboratory course for 25 second-year Physics students, covering mechanics, thermodynamics, and optics. Guided practical measurements, oversaw data collection, assisted with written reports, and provided mentorship — resulting in highly positive student feedback.
Collaboration scholarship at the Department of Signals, Systems and Radiocommunication. Developed C++ software to autonomously pilot a DJI Phantom drone to land on specified landmarks identified via the OpenCV library.
Analyzed throughput and power consumption of mobile devices across multiple countries using ANOVA tests. Facilitated bi-annual vendor meetings and compiled reports. Conducted laboratory experiments to evaluate and categorize device performance by vendor.
Are you aligned with the ikigai thinking? Feel free to reach out — I'm always happy to connect.