nLIGHT, Inc.

Item 5.02. Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers. On January 5, 2026, the board of directors (the “Board”) of nLIGHT, Inc. (the “Company”), upon recommendation from the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee of the Board, appointed Gerald M. Haines II as a Class I director, with a term expiring at the Company’s 2028 annual meeting of stockholders. The Board also has appointed Mr. Haines as a member of the Board’s Audit Committee. Mr. Haines most recently served as Chief Financial Officer of Metabolon. Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President and CFO of Impulse Dynamics and, earlier, held multiple senior leadership roles at Mercury Systems, including CFO and head of corporate development, where he helped drive substantial revenue and earnings growth, operational scaling, and strategic acquisitions in the aerospace and defense sector. His earlier career includes executive roles at Verenium, Enterasys Networks, and Applied Extrusion Technologies, where he led major transactions, corporate restructurings, governance initiatives, and global operational programs. Mr. Haines holds a J.D. from Cornell Law School and a B.S. in Business Administration from Boston University. No arrangement or understanding exists between Mr. Haines and any other person pursuant to which he was selected as a director. Furthermore, there are no transactions between Mr. Haines or any member of his immediate family, on the one hand, and the Company or any of its subsidiaries, on the other hand, that require disclosure under Item 404(a) of Regulation S-K. Mr. Haines will be compensated in accordance with the Company’s standard compensation policies and practices for the Board, the components of which were disclosed in “Outside Director Compensation Policy” section of the Company’s proxy statement for its 2025 annual meeting of stockholders filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 25, 2025. In addition, the Company will enter into its standard form of indemnification agreement with Mr. Haines. A copy of the press release announcing Mr. Haines’s appointment to the Board is attached hereto as Exhibit 99.1.