Director, Engineering

Director, Platform Engineering 

Vacuum and Atmospheric Mainframe, EFEM, Robotics, and Controls Platforms 

Job Description Summary 

Provides leadership and direction through managers and senior technical leaders for the global development of vacuum and atmospheric equipment platforms, including Mainframe, Equipment Front-End Module (EFEM), robotics, and control systems. Accountable for platform architecture, engineering design, system integration, design qualification, customer engagement, and product delivery across multiple Business Units. Contributes to functional strategy, establishes scalable platform roadmaps, and directs a broad engineering organization responsible for delivering differentiated, reliable, and manufacturable platform solutions in collaboration with internal partners, customers, and suppliers. 

Key Responsibilities 

•  Lead a global, multidisciplinary engineering organization responsible for the architecture, design, integration, qualification, and release of vacuum and atmospheric platforms, including Mainframe, EFEM, robotics, and control systems. 

•  Define the architecture and major elements of vacuum and atmospheric platforms, including Mainframe, EFEM, wafer-handling robotics, motion and automation controls, system boundaries, hardware and software interfaces, performance requirements, safety, serviceability, facilities, and configuration strategy. 

•  Own the end-to-end engineering lifecycle from concept and requirements through detailed design, design reviews, prototype integration, verification, qualification, release, and customer adoption. 

•  Partner with multiple Business Units to translate product and customer needs into clear project scope, engineering requirements specifications (eRS), interface requirements, priorities, schedules, and product delivery commitments. 

•  Establish a common platform strategy across vacuum and atmospheric systems, robotics, and controls that balances reuse and standardization with Business Unit-specific requirements, enabling faster product development, predictable integration, and lifecycle cost improvement. 

•  Direct design qualification and validation plans, including technical readiness criteria, risk retirement, reliability testing, compliance verification, issue closure, and release approval. 

•  Engage directly with customers to understand technology roadmaps, factory integration needs, use cases, and critical requirements; represent the platform organization in technical reviews, escalations, and roadmap discussions. 

•  Own the supplier engagement model for platform development, including requirements alignment, architecture and design reviews, development planning, qualification strategy, technical escalation, change control, and delivery performance. 

•  Work with senior leaders across engineering, product management, operations, supply chain, supplier quality, service, and Business Units to resolve cross-organizational tradeoffs and ensure alignment to business priorities. 

•  Anticipate future platform needs and initiate new engineering approaches, technologies, and development capabilities with significant product-line and customer impact. 

•  Provide executive-level accountability for systemic platform design, integration, qualification, supplier, and field issues affecting multiple products or customers. 

•  Define operating mechanisms, decision rights, technical governance, and performance metrics; report progress against quality, schedule, cost, risk, and product delivery goals. 

•  Recruit, develop, and retain a strong global engineering leadership team; build succession capability and a culture of technical excellence, ownership, collaboration, and disciplined execution. 

Functional Knowledge 

•  Deep expertise in semiconductor equipment platform engineering, with strong understanding of vacuum and atmospheric Mainframe and EFEM architectures, wafer-handling robotics, motion systems, control architecture, automation software, subsystem integration, mechanical and electrical design, facilities, safety, serviceability, and factory interfaces. 

•  Demonstrated ability to define modular system architectures, interface control requirements, configuration strategies, and platform standards that support multiple products and technology generations. 

•  Strong knowledge of systems engineering methods, requirements management, design reviews, risk analysis, verification and validation, reliability qualification, and product release processes. 

•  Working knowledge of vacuum and atmospheric wafer handling, robotics and motion control, atmospheric automation, equipment control systems, equipment integration, contamination control, ergonomics, regulatory compliance, and semiconductor factory requirements. 

•  Experience with supplier-developed systems and components, including technical specifications, design ownership, qualification, change management, quality controls, and lifecycle support. 

Business Expertise 

•  Ability to translate customer, Business Unit, and technology inflections into prioritized platform strategies, architecture roadmaps, and executable development plans. 

•  Experience managing complex programs that span multiple Business Units, product configurations, suppliers, geographies, and customer commitments. 

•  Demonstrated judgment in balancing performance, cost, schedule, quality, reliability, supply resilience, and time-to-market in high-volume, high-reliability product environments. 

•  Strong understanding of product lifecycle economics and value creation through platform reuse, standardization, modularity, supplier strategy, and reduction of recurring engineering work. 

•  Ability to connect platform engineering decisions to business outcomes, product competitiveness, customer confidence, margin, and speed of product delivery. 

Leadership 

•  Proven ability to lead and scale a global engineering organization through managers, senior technical leaders, and geographically distributed development teams. 

•  Establishes clear ownership, accountability, decision rights, and operating mechanisms across platform engineering, Business Units, suppliers, operations, supply chain, supplier quality, and service. 

•  Builds a strong leadership bench by coaching managers and technical leaders, clarifying roles, developing succession capability, and aligning resources to the highest-value priorities. 

•  Leads through both authority and influence, creating alignment across organizations with different priorities while maintaining enterprise-level platform direction. 

•  Creates an inclusive, high-accountability culture that encourages rigorous technical debate, transparent risk management, rapid learning, and timely decisions. 

Problem Solving 

•  Frames ambiguous, cross-Business Unit platform challenges into clear problem statements, architecture options, technical requirements, tradeoffs, and executable plans. 

•  Drives structured root-cause analysis and long-term corrective action for complex design, integration, supplier, qualification, and field issues. 

•  Anticipates systemic risks in platform architectures, interfaces, configurations, and supplier dependencies and implements preventive strategies before product or customer impact. 

•  Uses data, engineering judgment, modeling, first-principles thinking, and qualification evidence to make decisions under uncertainty. 

•  Escalates issues with clear facts, options, recommendations, owners, and closure criteria. 

Impact 

•  Enables multiple Business Units to deliver differentiated products on a common, scalable foundation spanning vacuum and atmospheric Mainframe, EFEM, robotics, and control platforms. 

•  Improves product quality, reliability, manufacturability, serviceability, and customer confidence through disciplined architecture, interface control, and qualification. 

•  Reduces development cycle time, recurring engineering effort, field issues, and supplier variability through platform standardization, reuse, and closed-loop learning. 

•  Accelerates customer adoption by ensuring platform readiness, factory compatibility, qualification maturity, and effective technical engagement. 

•  Creates durable competitive advantage through differentiated platform capability, faster product delivery, stronger supplier execution, and lifecycle value. 

Interpersonal Skills 

•  Communicates complex architecture, technical risk, program status, and business tradeoffs clearly and concisely to executives, engineers, customers, and suppliers. 

•  Builds credibility and trust across Business Units, global engineering teams, customers, suppliers, and cross-functional partners. 

•  Operates effectively in high-stakes customer and product escalation environments with clarity, composure, and decisiveness. 

•  Effectively negotiates scope, requirements, resources, priorities, technical decisions, and delivery commitments across organizational boundaries. 

•  Encourages constructive technical challenge while driving timely decisions, clear accountability, and closure. 

Qualifications 

•  Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, systems engineering, robotics, controls, or a related technical discipline; advanced degree preferred. 

•  Significant engineering leadership experience in complex capital equipment, semiconductor equipment, industrial automation, robotics, or a comparable high-reliability technology environment. 

•  Demonstrated experience leading managers and global engineering teams through architecture definition, product development, qualification, release, and customer engagement. 

•  Experience partnering with multiple product organizations and strategic suppliers to deliver integrated systems against business and customer commitments. 

Ethics and Compliance 

Position requires understanding of Applied Materials' global Standards of Business Conduct and compliance with these standards at all times. This includes demonstrating the highest level of ethical conduct and reflecting Applied Materials' core values.