Laser diodes have been developed that produce substantial output powers that make possible a variety of applications. To further increase available optical power, laser diode assemblies have been produced in which output beams from a plurality of laser diodes are combined in fiber laser systems. Such laser diode assemblies are sometimes referred to as laser diode packages. Typically, laser diode packages are arranged to stack beams emitted from the laser diodes in a fast axis. A variety of optics are included in the diode packages to collimate, direct, and focus the beams onto an input surface of a fiber that will transmit the combined beams to a processing apparatus. There is a drive in the laser industry to constantly improve the brightness and minimize losses in laser diode packages used to pump continuous wave fiber lasers (CWFL) and/or directly process material. Total available power can be increased by increasing the number of laser diodes in the diode package. However, the laser diodes used to form the beam stack must be spaced apart; thus, the number of beams in a beam stack delivered to an input surface of fiber is limited by the size of the beam stack. Therefore, the number of beams that can be practically combined is limited. Diode packages utilize different methods to physically separate the beams in the fast axis of the laser diode. In one example, laser diodes are arranged in a stair-step pattern and collimated beams from the lasers diodes are formed into a beam stack. One problem with the stair-step architecture is that laser diodes individually secured to separate stair-steps of a stepped diode mount have increasing step heights and thus correspondingly increased thermal paths. The laser diodes operate at increasingly higher temperature as the thermal path increases. Temperature negatively affects several laser diode parameters, the two most important of which are the laser diode power and laser diode reliability. Thus, the stairstep architecture in some laser diode packages reduces power and reliability. Alternative approaches are needed.