Senior Software Engineer, Customer Escalations

Group/Division

With over 40 years of semiconductor process control experience, chipmakers around the globe rely on KLA to ensure that their fabs ramp next-generation devices to volume production quickly and cost-effectively. Enabling the movement towards advanced chip design, KLA's Global Products Group (GPG), which is responsible for creating all of KLA’s metrology and inspection products, is looking for the best and the brightest research scientist, software engineers, application development engineers, and senior product technology process engineers. The Surfscan group includes a team of engineers, technology development, apps engineers and product marketing focused on technology that enables wafer, IC and equipment manufacturers to develop, qualify and monitor their process tools. Defects and process non-uniformities detected on Surfscan equipment allow for early identification of yield excursions. The flagship Surfscan products include the SPx platforms for wafer surface quality and wafer defect inspection tools and systems for inspection of polished wafers, epi wafers and engineered substrates during the wafer fabrication process.

Job Description/Preferred Qualifications

Key Responsibilities

• Lead senior-level software sustaining, continuous improvement, and escalation resolution for Surfscan product lines, with ownership for improving product reliability, customer uptime, release quality, and long-term serviceability.
• Drive software improvements across New and legacy Surfscan platforms, and related product families, to support customer commitments and maintain strong market leadership.
• Act as the senior technical owner for complex field issues by triaging customer problems, reproducing use cases, leading root-cause analysis, coordinating corrective actions, and ensuring closure with clear technical documentation.
• Provide senior technical leadership across multi-site engineering teams in the U.S. and India, Product Support, Marketing, Applications, Systems Engineering, and Service teams to resolve escalations and deliver robust customer-focused solutions.
• Coordinate closely with the CIP and Escalation teams in India to align priorities, share technical findings, track ownership, and drive timely customer issue resolution across a global team.
• Define and influence validation strategies, regression automation, test effectiveness, diagnostics, and release evidence practices in partnership with development and test teams to improve software quality and reduce recurring customer issues.
• Participate in the full software lifecycle, including requirements clarification, design reviews, implementation support, validation, deployment, troubleshooting, and post-release monitoring.
• Support deployment of service releases, patches, and customer-specific fixes while ensuring proper communication, risk assessment, rollback planning, and release readiness.
• Analyze customer issue trends, identify systemic gaps, and recommend process, tooling, diagnostics, logging, and automation improvements to reduce repeat escalations and improve customer satisfaction.
• Be available for occasional customer-site support, off-hours escalation coverage, cross-time-zone collaboration, and domestic or international customer travel as required for critical escalations, deployments, and issue resolution.

Required Qualifications

• BS or MS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 7+ years of experience in software development, software sustaining, validation, test automation, or customer escalation support for complex, high-reliability systems.
• Strong senior-level programming, debugging, and system troubleshooting skills in one or more modern languages such as C#, C++, .NET, Python, or equivalent.
• Hands-on experience working in Windows Server and Linux environments, including log analysis, failure reproduction, and issue isolation.
• Experience with automated testing frameworks, regression test development, CI/CD practices, version control, defect tracking, and structured release validation.
• Experience using AI-assisted tools to accelerate root-cause analysis, analyze logs and failure patterns, summarize technical findings, identify likely resolution paths, and improve speed and quality of customer issue resolution.
• Excellent communication, analytical thinking, interpersonal, and cross-functional leadership skills, with ability to explain complex technical issues clearly to engineering, support, management, and customer-facing teams.
• Strong ownership mindset, technical judgment, and ability to independently prioritize and drive multiple escalations, corrective actions, and quality improvements while maintaining urgency, communication discipline, and execution quality.
• This position may require domestic and international travel to customer sites to support critical escalations, deployments, issue reproduction, and resolution activities. The role may also require off-hours escalation support and cross-time-zone collaboration based on customer needs.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with semiconductor capital equipment, inspection or metrology systems, factory automation, SEMI standards, or high-reliability industrial software.
• Experience supporting customer escalations, field deployments, service releases, patches, diagnostics, and customer-specific fixes for complex equipment software.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with globally distributed teams, including engineering and escalation teams across the U.S. and India.
• Familiarity with Surfscan platforms, SPx, SP8/SP8 XP, or related product families is a plus.

Minimum Qualifications

Master's Level Degree and related work experience of 7 years; Bachelor's Level Degree and related work experience of 7+ years

Base Pay Range: $136,300.00 - $231,700.00 Annually

Primary Location: USA-CA-Milpitas-KLA

KLA’s total rewards package for employees may also include participation in performance incentive programs and eligibility for additional benefits including but not limited to: medical, dental, vision, life, and other voluntary benefits, 401(K) including company matching, employee stock purchase program (ESPP), student debt assistance, tuition reimbursement program, development and career growth opportunities and programs, financial planning benefits, wellness benefits including an employee assistance program (EAP), paid time off and paid company holidays, and family care and bonding leave.

Interns are eligible for some of the benefits listed. Our pay ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed reflects the pay for this position in the primary location identified in this posting. Actual pay depends on several factors, including state minimum pay wage rates, location, job-related skills, experience, and relevant education level or training. We are committed to complying with all applicable federal and state minimum wage requirements where applicable. If applicable, your recruiter can share more about the specific pay range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

KLA is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We will ensure that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us at talent.acquisition@kla.comor at +1-408-352-2808 to request accommodation.

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