Applications Development Engineer

About the Role

The Semiconductor Products and Customers (Semi PC) business unit designs, builds, and sells KLA’s product portfolio to help chip manufacturers meet high-quality standards for technologies like AI, data centers, automotive, and electronic devices. Our inspection, metrology, and analytics systems detect and monitor defects across logic and memory chips, specialty semiconductors, wafers, reticles, advanced packaging, process equipment, and materials. We also develop technologies for specialty processes, IC substrates, and PCB manufacturing, including etch and deposition, component inspection, and imaging and analytics.

The Broadband Plasma (BBP) division is the market-leading optical inspection system used by logic, foundry, and memory customers to detect critical defects at advanced nodes. These tools combine broadband plasma technology with unmatched sensitivity and speed to support high-volume manufacturing.

In this role, you will play a key part in advancing business priorities by delivering high-impact work across your area of expertise.

What You'll Do

This role involves playing a key part in advancing business priorities by delivering high-impact work across your area of expertise, focusing on the following areas:

• Customer Support: Providing product value demonstration during beta testing and in the ramp phase (Head-to-Heads/H2H) to enable product penetration and adoption at global customers. This includes investigating semiconductor manufacturing yield issues and providing inspection solutions; creating and sharing product value statements and use-cases with engineering, marketing, and sales groups; and training customers and other applications engineers.
• Product Demonstration: Providing specific product demonstrations on all aspects of highly complex products to customers and assessing potential applications to meet customer needs.
• Product Characterization: Developing test plans and executing detailed characterization of tool/algorithm performance, providing clear feedback to Engineering teams for product improvement, especially during Alpha/Beta tests.
• Problem Diagnosis/Troubleshooting: Responding to customer requests and performing routine to moderately complex problem diagnosis and resolution.
• Customer Relationship: Interacting with customers to educate and coordinate activities. Requires good working knowledge of customer use cases and the ability to understand and improve customer relations.
• Training: Conducting customer product demonstrations and technical training, including on-site training for Field Applications Engineers and end users.
• Documentation: Documenting all test results and lessons learned in Best Known Methods (BKMs), training documents, Demo reports, or Alpha/Beta test reports, and transferring product knowledge to Field Applications teams.
• Presentation/Communication Skills: Generating demo and test reports and presenting findings effectively to internal and customer review groups.

Requirements and Qualifications

Requirements

• Must be a high-energy, self-driven, and motivated engineer interested in working in High Tech. The semiconductor space is a fast-paced, high-stress environment that gives applications engineers significant autonomy to drive projects independently. Ideal candidates appreciate high levels of accountability and thrive when working with limited supervision.
• Must have a Master’s or Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Physics, Material Science, or a related field.
• Must possess excellent oral and written communication, organizational, analytical, and interpersonal skills.
• Must be a strong team player.
• Greater than 70% travel will be required.

Minimum Qualifications

• Master's Level Degree with 0 years of related work experience, OR a Bachelor's Level Degree with 2 years of related work experience.

About KLA

We provide advanced inspection tools, metrology systems, process solutions, and computational analytics that make electronics possible, tackling complex challenges. From electron and photon optics to machine learning and data analytics, we seek perfection at the most fundamental level of matter in the universe. If you want to make electronics that push industries forward and make the world a better place, join us.

Employment Information

We offer a competitive, family-friendly total rewards package. We design our programs to reflect our commitment to an inclusive environment while ensuring we provide benefits that meet the diverse needs of our employees.

KLA is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

Use of AI Statement: At KLA, our interviews seek to understand your individual skills, problem-solving approach, and authentic thinking. To ensure a fair and consistent evaluation, the use of AI, recording tools, or other technologies to generate, suggest, or provide responses during interviews—whether virtual or in person—is not permitted unless explicitly approved in advance as part of a reasonable accommodation or invited by the interviewer. Use of these tools may interfere with our ability to evaluate your individual qualifications and affect your candidacy. KLA is committed to advancing innovation through responsible AI, and we value candidates who share this mindset.