Application Engineer

To make electronics, you need chips, wafers, transistors, reticles, and... To make these, you must see, test and manufacture them at scale—faster and better than ever before. That's where KLA comes in. Whether you're early in your career or an experienced professional, you'll solve complex challenges, work alongside brilliant minds and help shape the future of technology.

Group/Division

KLA has manufacturing sites worldwide. The Global Operations (GOPS) team, comprised of Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, Manufacturing Engineering, Installation and Quality, builds our leading-edge technology. GOPS partners with KLA's global supply base and design engineering teams to develop new products, working continuously to build better, faster and more cost-efficient solutions.

What You'll Do

In this role, you will play a key part in advancing business priorities by delivering high-impact work across your area of expertise.

We are seeking an experienced Application Engineer to join our Engineering team. The successful candidate will serve as a key technical interface between R&D, Manufacturing, Service, and customers, ensuring that advanced semiconductor equipment and processes are successfully developed, transferred to manufacturing, and deployed worldwide.

This role is ideal for a highly motivated engineer who has worked closely with multiple semiconductor fabs across different regions and possesses deep understanding of wafer fabrication processes, equipment integration, manufacturing challenges, and customer requirements.

Key Responsibilities

• Support product development and New Product Introduction (NPI) activities from concept through high-volume manufacturing.
• Collaborate with global semiconductor fabs to understand manufacturing challenges, process requirements, and equipment performance expectations.
• Drive Design for Manufacturability (DFM) and continuous improvement initiatives to improve quality, reliability, and factory efficiency.
• Act as the technical expert for product applications, process integration, and customer use cases.
• Analyze equipment performance data, identify root causes of issues, and implement corrective actions.
• Work closely with Systems, Mechanical, Electrical, Software, and Manufacturing Engineering teams to resolve complex technical problems.
• Support factory builds, system integration, qualification, and field escalations.
• Develop manufacturing procedures, training materials, and best practices.
• Participate in customer meetings, technical reviews, and product demonstrations worldwide.
• Provide feedback from customers and fabs to influence future product development.

Minimum Qualifications

• B.Sc. or M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Experience in the semiconductor industry.
• Extensive hands-on experience working with semiconductor fabs worldwide.
• Strong understanding of semiconductor manufacturing processes including lithography, metrology, inspection, deposition, etch, CMP, or related technologies.
• Experience with semiconductor capital equipment and manufacturing operations.
• Proven ability to solve multidisciplinary technical problems.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to travel internationally as required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting global customers in high-volume manufacturing environments.
• Knowledge of NPI, PLC, DFM, reliability engineering, and manufacturing readiness.
• Experience working across R&D, Manufacturing, Service, and Applications organizations.
• Familiarity with data analysis, diagnostics, and process optimization tools.
• Experience leading technical projects and influencing cross-functional teams.

Key Competencies

• Strong customer focus
• Systems-level thinking
• Technical leadership
• Problem-solving and analytical skills
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Effective communication across global teams
• Continuous improvement mindset

What Success Looks Like

• Successful transfer of new products into manufacturing.
• Improved manufacturability, reliability, and product quality.
• Faster problem resolution and reduced customer escalations.
• Strong relationships with semiconductor fabs and internal stakeholders.
• Driving innovative solutions that improve customer productivity and manufacturing efficiency.

About KLA

We provide advanced inspection tools, metrology systems, process solutions, and computational analytics that make electronics possible, tackling complex challenges. From electron and photon optics to machine learning and data analytics, we seek perfection at the most fundamental level of matter in the universe. If you want to make electronics that push industries forward and make the world a better place, join us.

Use of AI Statement 

At KLA, our interviews seek to understand your individual skills, problem-solving approach and authentic thinking. To ensure a fair and consistent evaluation, the use of AI, recording tools or other technologies to generate, suggest or provide responses during interviews—whether virtual or in person—is not permitted unless explicitly approved in advance as part of a reasonable accommodation or invited by the interviewer. Use of these tools may interfere with our ability to evaluate your individual qualifications and affect your candidacy. KLA is committed to advancing innovation through responsible AI, and we value candidates who share this mindset.

We offer a competitive, family friendly total rewards package. We design our programs to reflect our commitment to an inclusive environment, while ensuring we provide benefits that meet the diverse needs of our employees.

KLA is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.