Staff Engineer, Wafer Quality Assurance - San Jose, United States
Manufacturing & Equipment Engineering
Originally posted 28 September 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role involves performing wafer failure analysis and driving quality improvement initiatives within semiconductor or wafer manufacturing.
What you'll do
- Perform wafer failure analysis and provide disposition for customer-flagged issues.
- Facilitate wafer manufacturing readiness and process design readiness review meetings.
- Drive 8D closure with corrective and preventive action implementations.
- Lead and facilitate FMEA activities to mitigate potential failure modes.
- Partner with engineering teams to implement automated quality surveillance and anomaly detection solutions.
- Drive digitalization initiatives that improve CAPA effectiveness, root cause identification, and risk assessment.
- Evaluate and integrate generative AI and digital agent technologies to enhance engineering productivity and quality decision-making.
- Participate in developing and deploying AI-assisted quality monitoring solutions for CRB, MRB, FA, and FMEA activities.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Material Science, Physics, Data Sciences or a related technical field.
- 3+ years of experience in quality assurance, quality engineering, or a related role within semiconductor or wafer manufacturing.
- Strong problem-solving and root-cause-analysis skills.
- Ability to analyze datasets and interpret statistical/model-performance results.
- Familiarity with FMEA methodology and its application to IT and manufacturing systems.
- Basic understanding of wafer product, including HAMR.
- Strong cross-functional collaboration skills.
- Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with a detail-oriented mindset.
Nice to have
- Master's degree in a related technical field.
- Experience working with AI/ML or generative AI systems.
- Knowledgeable of SPC, wafer process build, and interconnection between process, equipment, manufacturing, backend.
- Experience with end-to-end quality management in semiconductor manufacturing.
- Experience developing or utilizing AI-enabled quality monitoring and reporting systems.
- Knowledge of Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), Copilot technologies, or Digital Agents for engineering workflows.
- Strong data storytelling and visualization skills.
- Continuous improvement mindset with the ability to identify opportunities for automation and digital transformation.
Market context
This role has been open 16 days — well below the 52-day median for Yield Engineering roles.
Yield Engineering · Yield Engineering
|
Open roles in category
220
|
Median days open
52 d
|
Median salary
$132k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Western Digital | All employers we track in this specialty (220 roles · 36 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 3 | 220 |
| Median days open | 16 d | 52 d (−36 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $132k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Micron Technology · 116 open roles · median 56 d
- Intel Corporation · 13 open roles · median 15 d
- GlobalFoundries · 9 open roles · median 211 d
- Skyworks · 8 open roles · median 49 d
- Qualcomm · 6 open roles · median 128 d
- STMicroelectronics · 6 open roles · median 44 d
How we counted: 220 open Yield Engineering (Yield Engineering) roles from 36 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 15 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.