Optical Development Engineer - Milpitas, CA, United States
$117,800 - $172,800 USD yearly
Originally posted 29 September 2026 by the employer.
This role focuses on advancing patterned wafer inspection systems for advanced semiconductor manufacturing within the LS-SWIFT division.
About the role
This role is for an optical engineer to be part of the INSIGHT engineering development team, responsible for developing and maintaining testing facilities in support of the ongoing INSIGHT product development roadmap.
What you'll do
- Build and align lasers and test equipment in a clean room environment.
- Participate in creating alignment and assembly procedures.
- Test and collect data, then create results presentations.
- Manage vendors for acquiring hardware needed for testing.
- Travel to vendor sites to repair/troubleshoot KLA test fixtures.
- Occasionally travel to the KLA Singapore manufacturing sites.
What you'll need
- Optical training or equivalent work experience in the optical field.
- Optical alignment and testing laboratory work experience.
- Basic optical understanding.
- Mechanical integration experience.
- Experience in creating assembly and alignment procedures.
- Ability to travel to vendor sites and KLA Singapore manufacturing location.
Nice to have
- Prior experience handling high quality optics.
- Prior experience with laser systems alignment.
- Start to finish data collection through analysis with electronic devices (camera images, computer captured electronic data such as a power meter).
- Experience processing and presenting data and conclusions.
- Past experience with KLA inspection tools integration.
This role has been open 11 days — well below the 49-day median for Hardware Systems Engineering roles.
Hardware Systems Engineering · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
947
|
Median days open
49 d
|
Median salary
$158k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | KLA Corporation | All employers we track in this specialty (947 roles · 103 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 59 | 947 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 201 | 6035 · 146 employers |
| Median days open | 39 d | 49 d (−10 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $158k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Intel Corporation · 70 open roles · median 29 d
- KLA Corporation (this employer) · 59 open roles · median 38 d
- NVIDIA · 52 open roles · median 64 d
- Applied Materials · 50 open roles · median 58 d
- Teradyne · 48 open roles · median 22 d
- AMD · 44 open roles · median 62 d
How we counted: 947 open Hardware Systems Engineering (AI ML Hardware) roles from 103 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 10 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 — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.