Sr. Applications Engineer-Optical Metrology

Critical Fit Recruiting; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Critical Fit Recruiting seeks a Sr. Applications Engineer-Optical Metrology to drive yield management and process control software for advanced semiconductor manufacturing customers.

You will work with Software Development, Applications Engineering and Product Marketing to align enterprise product development with market needs and timelines. Responsibilities include defining product capabilities from market requirements, planning development timelines, optimizing costs, and ensuring proper

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Production Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Operations Research, or related field.
• Experience with complex yield management and/or process control software in semiconductor/automation environments.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to troubleshoot multi-subsystem interactions.

Responsibilities

• Analyze market requirements and translate them into product capabilities with timelines.
• Collaborate with engineering to optimize development costs and product licensing.
• Coordinate with Marketing on configurations that drive adoption and production use.
• Guide product deployment, documentation, and field training for successful releases.
• Report development metrics and performance to executives and cross-functional teams.

Skills

Python

MATLAB

JMP

Analytical thinking

Communication skills

Travel readiness

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or Engineering

Job description

The Sr. Applications Engineer-Optical Metrology will focus on semiconductor yield management and process control software for advanced semiconductor manufacturing customers. This role will work closely with Software Development Engineering, Applications Engineering, and Product Marketing to ensure that Enterprise product development is fully in-synch with market needs and timelines, and the engineering effort is optimized to deliver the largest ROI developments in timeframes that help win the customers over.

Responsibilities:

Product Definition and Planning

• Analyze Market Requirement Documents and translate them into product capabilities required to fulfill those requirements. Prescribe development timelines for maximizing the commercial value from launch of such capabilities into the market.
• Collaborate with engineering to negotiate the best path to developing the required product capabilities while optimizing non-recurring development costs as well as recurring costs such as royalties etc. throughout the life of the product.

Product Sellability and Supportability

• Collaborate with Marketing to understand the correct product configurations that drive product adoption and quick conversion to a Plan-of-Record production use of the product.
• Guide engineering to include correct license features and licensing schemes in accordance with the product configurations.
• Shape the implementation trajectories of products in a way that drives ease of installation, operational status tracking, debugging in field, ease of upgrade, compatibility with off-the-shelf hardware configurations, logging and error reporting etc.
• Ensure accurate and adequate documentation accompanies each major release, and is treated the same a product in terms of training the field support teams to use it correctly.

Reporting on Product Development to executives

• Collaborate with Program Management lead to generate and track metrics for development costs as well as cost-of-goods-sold.
• Present these metrics as a key part of the business update at Monthly Program Reviews, Monthly Technology Reviews, Quarterly Business Reviews, etc.
• Present deep dives on new technology that is of broad interest to teams beyond Enterprise products - e.g. AI and related applications such as Knowledge Base etc.
• Monitor product performance across prototypes, pilot builds, and production tools to track and report long-term stability and consistency.

New Product Introduction (NPI)

• Lead or support getting a new product or a product version ready for launch, rapid rollout, and smooth adoption.
• Validate alpha and beta system builds by driving end-to-end characterization and performance verification by Applications team.
• Assist factory and field Applications teams during early tool deployments, ensuring proper system setup and performance during demos and evaluations.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with various internal teams to ensure subsystem interfaces and interdependencies are robust and well understood.
• Collaborate with Product Engineering to refine system specifications, user workflows, and long-term reliability expectations.
• Provide training, guidance, and technical support to field and applications teams during critical system escalations.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Production Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Operations Research, or related field.
• Experience working with complex yield management and/or process control software systems in semiconductor, robotics, automation, aerospace, precision instrumentation, or a related industry.
• Understanding of yield engineering concepts such as defect analysis, databases and analytics layer, anomaly detection, root cause analysis, and statistical correlations and classification.
• Strong analytical skills with proficiency in Python, MATLAB, JMP, or equivalent.
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot multi-subsystem interactions and interpret diagnostic data.
• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative mindset.
• Willingness to travel (10-25%) for tool testing, field support, or customer engagements.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with defect management systems, yield management systems, fault detection and classification, run-to-run process control, automation, business intelligence layers.
• Familiarity with Program Management methodologies, risk analysis, or scenario testing.
• Knowledge of cost structure analysis, cost optimization, supply chain stability
• Experience with software development within semiconductor inspection and metrology equipment, automation systems, or advanced instrumentation.