Principal Thin Film Process Engineer - USA - CA - San Jose (Rose), United States
$134,750 - $192,500 USD yearly
Originally posted 11 May 2026 by the employer. Relisted by the employer on 6 October 2026.
About the role
The Principal Thin Film Process Engineer serves as a technical lead at the San Jose Wafer Fab, providing strategic direction in Sputter Deposition (PVD) and Electron Beam (EB) Evaporation to scale and sustain High-Volume Manufacturing (HVM). The role oversees the stability of complex dielectric, oxide, and metal coatings to ensure process robustness and scalability in production.
What you'll do
- Act as the Subject Matter Expert for PVD (DC, RF, Reactive) and EB Evaporation, applying hands-on thin-film growth kinetics experience to manipulate optical, structural, and mechanical properties of multilayer stacks. - Provide technical oversight of vacuum hardware, including turbo pumps, MFCs, and pressure controllers, while integrating process changes across PLCs and control interfaces for Copy Exactly tool matching. - Drive Continuous Improvement Projects (CIP) focused on recipe robustness, cycle-time optimization, and Cost of Ownership (COO) reduction for high-volume manufacturing. - Lead Root Cause Analysis (RCA), FMEA, and Pareto Analysis to resolve yield detractors, achieve tool-to-tool matching, and eliminate in-film defects. - Develop automated process health monitors using Python, MATLAB, or JMP, implementing corrective actions to ensure consistent manufacturing output. - Manage equipment procurement from technical specification definition and vendor selection through Site Acceptance Testing (SAT) and HVM qualification.
What you'll need
- Ph.D. or Master’s degree in Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, Physics, or a related field. - 10+ years of hands-on semiconductor process engineering experience with Sputter/PVD and EB Evaporator systems in high-volume manufacturing. - Advanced knowledge of Sputter Coating (DC, RF, Reactive) and EB Evaporation for metals, dielectrics, and oxides in a wafer fab environment. - Expert-level understanding of SPC, DOE, and FMEA for process characterization and stability control. - Advanced proficiency in thin-film characterization tools, including Ellipsometry, SEM-EDX, TEM, AFM, XPS, FIB, XRR, SAXS, FTIR, and Defect Metrology. - Demonstrated experience analyzing large-scale datasets using Python, MATLAB, JMP, or Minitab.
Skills: PVD, EB Evaporation, thin-film growth, vacuum hardware, statistical process control, recipe robustness
This role has been open 184 days — well above the 71-day median for Process Engineering roles.
Process Engineering · Semiconductor Process
|
Open roles in category
1049
|
Median days open
71 d
|
Median salary
$137k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Lumentum | All employers we track in this specialty (1049 roles · 56 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 15 | 1049 |
| Open roles in the wider Process, Fab & Equipment family | 112 | 10039 · 106 employers |
| Median days open | 93 d | 71 d (+22 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $137k |
Skills observed across this category: PVD, EB Evaporation, thin-film growth, vacuum hardware, statistical process control, recipe robustness
Who's hiring in this category
- Micron Technology · 333 open roles · median 131 d
- GlobalFoundries · 88 open roles · median 88 d
- Applied Materials · 78 open roles · median 66 d
- Texas Instruments · 57 open roles · median 54 d
- STMicroelectronics · 50 open roles · median 47 d
- Entegris · 43 open roles · median 43 d
How we counted: 1049 open Process Engineering (Semiconductor Process) roles from 56 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 25 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.
Lumentum
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