Development Engineer II: PV Thermal Process & Scale-Up

First Solar; Perrysburg (OH); On-site; USD 81,000 - 115,000; Full time

Job summary

First Solar is seeking a Development Engineer to advance thermal annealing and materials-process development for PV modules. This role focuses on scaling processes from pilot to production, driving yield improvements, and ensuring cost-effective performance improvements.

You will own reliability and troubleshooting of equipment, design and run controlled experiments, and collaborate with R&D and manufacturing to deliver high-quality, scalable processes.

Qualifications

• Associate’s Degree in engineering or similar technical discipline with 15 years of relevant experience or 2 years as Development Engineer I at First Solar.
• Bachelor’s Degree in engineering or similar technical discipline with 5 years of relevant experience or 2 years as Development Engineer I at First Solar.
• Master’s Degree in engineering or similar technical discipline with 3 years of relevant experience or 2 years as Development Engineer I at First Solar.
• Ph.D. in engineering or similar technical discipline, without prior technical work experience.

Responsibilities

• Develop, continuously improve, and document robust solar module processes to achieve the highest product performance in a cost-efficient manner.
• May be responsible for determining, evaluating and documenting process and equipment specifications for improved performance.
• Design and execute planned process experiments, collect and analyze data and report experimental results.
• Effective communicator with internal and external partners. Effective team member that can support cross-functional projects and take ownership of deliverables.
• May train, mentor and manage junior associates.
• Complies with Company's Environmental, Quality, Safety or any other policies that have been enforced.
• Other duties as assigned.
• Job description subject to change at any time.

Skills

Thermal annealing

Materials science

Experiment execution

Equipment troubleshooting

DOE

Statistical Process Control

Structured problem solving

Ownership

Cross-functional communication

Education

Associate’s Degree in engineering or equivalent

Bachelor’s Degree in engineering or equivalent

Master’s Degree in engineering or equivalent

Ph.D. in engineering or equivalent

Job description

First Solar is seeking a Development Engineer to advance thermal annealing and materials-process development for PV modules. This role focuses on scaling processes from pilot to production, driving yield improvements, and ensuring cost-effective performance improvements.

You will own reliability and troubleshooting of equipment, design and run controlled experiments, and collaborate with R&D and manufacturing to deliver high-quality, scalable processes.