Principal Materials and Failure Analysis Engineer (SIMS) - Sherman, TX, United States
Originally posted 6 July 2026 by the employer.
Establish and lead the SIMS laboratory supporting semiconductor, photonics, and optoelectronic technologies.
About the role
Lead the establishment of Coherent Sherman’s SIMS laboratory, including capability definition, facility requirements, equipment selection, installation, qualification, and operational readiness. You will serve as the site Subject Matter Expert (SME) for SIMS analysis, directing materials characterization and failure analysis workflows across semiconductor, photonics, and optoelectronic technologies.
What you'll do
- Lead the installation, acceptance testing, qualification, and optimization of SIMS instrumentation and supporting laboratory infrastructure. - Direct and perform SIMS materials analysis workflows, including sample preparation, tool setup, data acquisition, depth profiling, interpretation, and method development. - Perform and coordinate advanced materials characterization and failure analysis using SIMS, SEM, FIB, TEM, EDX, and optical microscopy to identify root cause failure mechanisms. - Define and implement laboratory workflows, analytical procedures, quality systems, calibration methodologies, and maintenance plans. - Partner with Equipment Engineering and Facilities teams to maximize tool reliability, uptime, and analytical performance. - Support new product introduction, technology development, yield improvement, and reliability investigations across manufacturing, epitaxy, and R&D teams.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree with 9+ years, Master's degree with 7+ years, or PhD with 4+ years of related experience in materials characterization, semiconductor processing, failure analysis, thin-film technologies, or epitaxial growth. - Advanced expertise with SIMS and/or TOF-SIMS characterization techniques. - Demonstrated experience performing dopant profiling, contamination analysis, and depth profiling of semiconductor and optoelectronic materials. - Experience with epitaxial growth technologies including MOCVD, MBE, sputtering, or thin-film deposition. - Hands-on experience with complementary analytical techniques, including SEM, FIB, TEM, EDX, XPS, or AFM. - Proficiency in statistical and data analysis software, including JMP, Excel, and Design of Experiments (DOE).
Nice to have
- Experience supporting optoelectronic, photonic, or semiconductor manufacturing environments.
This role has been open 107 days — well above the 55-day median for Failure Analysis Engineering roles.
Failure Analysis Engineering · Failure Analysis
|
Open roles in category
193
|
Median days open
55 d
|
Median salary
$116k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Coherent Corp | All employers we track in this specialty (193 roles · 39 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 3 | 193 |
| Open roles in the wider Process, Fab & Equipment family | 155 | 10066 · 107 employers |
| Median days open | 107 d | 55 d (+52 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $116k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Micron Technology · 35 open roles · median 76 d
- GlobalFoundries · 14 open roles · median 29 d
- Lam Research · 14 open roles · median 45 d
- Infineon Technologies · 13 open roles · median 50 d
- Intel Corporation · 10 open roles · median 48 d
- STMicroelectronics · 10 open roles · median 49 d
How we counted: 193 open Failure Analysis Engineering (Failure Analysis) roles from 39 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 21 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 Process, Fab & Equipment family row. Figures refresh nightly.