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The consequences of tailoring the longitudinal carrier density along the active layer of a multi-contact bulk semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) are investigated using a rate equation model. It is shown that both the noise figure and output power saturation can be optimized for a fixed total injected bias current. The simulation results are validated by comparison with experiment using a multi-contact SOA. The inter-contact resistance is increased using a focused ion beam in order to optimize the carrier density control. A chip noise figure of 3.8 dB and a saturation output power of 9 dBm are measured experimentally for a total bias current of 150 mA.