Applications Development Engineer - Surfscan - Milpitas, CA, United States
$97,800 - $166,300 USD yearly
Originally posted 22 July 2026 by the employer.
Surfscan SPx wafer inspection platforms
About the role
This role involves the characterization and customer adoption of Surfscan semiconductor wafer inspection products. The team focuses on SPx platforms for wafer surface quality and defect inspection across polished wafers, epi wafers, and engineered substrates.
What you'll do
- Characterize semiconductor wafer inspection products and assess system performance. - Develop and review feature requirements, design test plans, collect data, perform analysis, and publish results in applications notes and best-known methods. - Conduct tool demonstrations to highlight differentiated performance and build use cases for new features. - Execute product value demonstrations during beta testing, head-to-head evaluations, and ramp phases to support product penetration at customer sites. - Investigate semiconductor manufacturing yield issues and develop inspection solutions to monitor them. - Create and deliver product value statements and use cases to engineering, marketing, and sales groups.
What you'll need
- Master's or PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Materials Science, Engineering, or a related field. - Experience with test plan design, experimental data collection, and data analysis for hardware or metrology systems. - Demonstrated technical capability in semiconductor defect inspection or wafer inspection workflows.
Nice to have
- Optics background. - Semiconductor processing knowledge.
Skills: wafer inspection, defect inspection, product value demonstration, customer sites, applications notes
This role has been open 88 days — well above the 73-day median for Applications FAE roles.
Applications FAE · Metrology Inspection
|
Open roles in category
127
|
Median days open
73 d
|
Median salary
$128k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | KLA Corporation | All employers we track in this specialty (127 roles · 7 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 93 | 127 |
| Median days open | 67 d | 73 d (−6 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $128k |
Skills observed across this category: wafer inspection, defect inspection, product value demonstration, customer sites, applications notes
Who's hiring in this category
- KLA Corporation (this employer) · 94 open roles · median 66 d
- Onto Innovation · 19 open roles · median 83 d
- Applied Materials · 5 open roles · median 104 d
- ASML · 3 open roles · median 97 d
- Micron Technology · 3 open roles · median 66 d
- Veeco Instruments · 2 open roles · median 81 d
How we counted: 127 open Applications FAE (Metrology Inspection) roles from 7 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 19 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there. Figures refresh nightly.