Director, Head of the Central Platform Group (CPG)

Company Overview

KLA is a global leader in diversified electronics for the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. Virtually every electronic device in the world is produced using our technologies. No laptop, smartphone, wearable device, voice-controlled gadget, flexible screen, VR device or smart car would have made it into your hands without us. KLA invents systems and solutions for the manufacturing of wafers and reticles, integrated circuits, packaging, printed circuit boards and flat panel displays. The innovative ideas and devices that are advancing humanity all begin with inspiration, research and development. KLA focuses more than average on innovation and we invest 15% of sales back into R&D. Our expert teams of physicists, engineers, data scientists and problem-solvers work together with the world’s leading technology providers to accelerate the delivery of tomorrow’s electronic devices. Life here is exciting and our teams thrive on tackling really hard problems. There is never a dull moment with us.

Job Description/Preferred Qualifications

The Head of the Central Platform Group (CPG) is an enterprise leader whose domain impacts nearly every tool sold by KLA. In this role you will lead a large global multi-disciplinary engineering team to invent, design, release, manufacture, and service the front-end substrate handlers and all underlying automation infrastructure.

Your product line includes several generations of handlers, including the emerging Phoenix 6 high-performance platform. These feature several elements including robotics, pre-aligners, environmental controls, and specialized transport cassette openers. But CPG drives so much more than robotic handlers. Control software within each of the KLA products includes common libraries and components developed by CPG as a common software platform. Your team also creates innovative tooling, data systems, and AI-based analytics to optimize handler installation, service, and lifetime performance. CPG engineers conceived and developed specialty wafer and reticle substrates used to monitor material handling throughout a customer factory, along with its automation station to integrate seamlessly into our customers' factories.

In this role you will define and optimize the product offering roadmap for KLA's material handling and automation, driving engineering efforts across all required disciplines (mechanical & robotics, electrical/electronic, integrated systems, software, algorithms, manufacturing & service New Product Introduction). Your team is comprised of roughly 110 experienced specialists in all these areas, based mostly in Israel, with specialty teams in India, Singapore, and California.

You will be accountable for the CPG organization's annual strategy, budgeting & spend, talent, and partnership funding from the respective product groups within KLA who use your handler solutions exclusively. You will monitor and approve ongoing production plans for handling systems in line with KLA end-product demand, as well as partner with your dedicated manufacturing operations team regarding production & customer installation costs, quality, supply chain, cycle time, and lead time. Similarly, you will partner with your dedicated service operations team regarding field service readiness, costs, reliability, and escalation support.

In this role you will engage many customers including all internal product divisions deploying your handling & automation solutions, as well as KLA end-customers who depend upon your solutions to meet their demanding performance and quality expectations. You will represent the CPG organization to product division leaders and KLA executives regularly.

Minimum Qualifications

Education and Experience Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree (B.Sc) with at least 10 years of relevant work experience
• Master’s Degree (M.Sc) with at least 8 years of relevant work experience
• Doctorate (Ph.D) with at least 5 years of relevant work experience
  
  

Demonstrated Competencies:

• Drive Vision & Purpose: Can paint a compelling vision for the organization and inspire its members to action.
• Build high-performing teams: Attracting high-caliber talent to the org, grooming and upgrading talent within the org, and modeling a culture that enables each team member to contribute and excel.
• Exemplify the 5 values of KLA: Consistently honest & forthright, high-performing teams, drive to be better, indispensable to KLA and customers, and perseverance.
• Execution to cost/schedule/performance, and driving dependable results
• Managing ambiguity and in periods of flux.
• Networking/Partnership/Diplomacy: Ability to champion and challenge both your staff and your partners across the product divisions, manufacturing operations, and service operations.
• Communication skills to assure mutual understanding and partnership.
• Enterprise Mindset: Understands and is motivated by broader KLA interests beyond your immediate domains of responsibility. Appreciates trade-offs for the greater good of KLA, even if at the expense of your domain.
  
  

Experiences in Integrated Hardware/Software Systems:

• Software development leading practices, , quality systems, and DevOps.
• Electronic control systems and power distribution
• Systems & Mechanical Hardware for wafer contact, motion/robotics, and optomechanics.
• System architecture, design, prototyping, validation, vendor selection, and release for manufacturing and service.
• Manufacturing & Service operations & readiness, supply chain management, ECO cut-in and operations impact/forecast.
  
  

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

Be aware of potentially fraudulent job postings or suspicious recruiting activity by persons that are currently posing as KLA employees. KLA never asks for any financial compensation to be considered for an interview, to become an employee, or for equipment. Further, KLA does not work with any recruiters or third parties who charge such fees either directly or on behalf of KLA. Please ensure that you have searched KLA’s Careers website for legitimate job postings. KLA follows a recruiting process that involves multiple interviews in person or on video conferencing with our hiring managers. If you are concerned that a communication, an interview, an offer of employment, or that an employee is not legitimate, please send an email to talent.acquisition@kla.com to confirm the person you are communicating with is an employee. We take your privacy very seriously and confidentially handle your information.