Equipment Engineer, Thermal

T1 Energy • Rockdale, TX

4d • Onsite

About The Position

The Role G2 is T1 Energy’s new TOPCon solar cell fab in Rockdale, Texas. Thermal process sets the junction: boron diffusion, oxidation, and the furnaces that follow. When these tools drift or stop, cell efficiency and output go with them. We’re hiring Equipment Engineers to keep them running. You’ll own a set of thermal tools, from install through high-volume production. The set covers boron diffusion and oxidation vertical tube furnaces and the Boating Room equipment that feeds them. It’s a hands-on role: most of your day is at the tool, and you’ll be trusted to make the engineering calls that keep it running. This is an on-site role at G2 in Rockdale, Texas, day shift supporting a 24/7 fab, with an on-call rotation for critical tool-downs, and cleanroom and sub-fab work in full chemical PPE. You’ll be building a fab from the ground up: your PMs, your procedures, and your fixes become the standard, and the calls on your tools are yours to make.

Requirements

• A bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, or Mechatronics Engineering, or an associate degree with equivalent hands-on experience.
• 3+ years of hands-on equipment engineering in semiconductor, solar, or similar high-volume manufacturing.
• Hands-on repair of tube diffusion, oxidation, or LPCVD furnaces, including heating elements, thermocouples, gas delivery (mass flow controllers, valves, heated lines), vacuum and pressure control, and boat handling.
• Component-level troubleshooting from electrical schematics, pneumatic drawings, P&IDs, and PLC/HMI diagnostics.
• A track record of eliminating a chronic equipment failure, not just repairing it again.
• Safe working practice with toxic and corrosive process gases, high-temperature systems, quartzware handling, and LOTO.

Nice To Haves

• solar cell (TOPCon, PERC, or HJT) or semiconductor fab experience.
• greenfield tool install, SAT, and ramp experience.

Responsibilities

• Own OEE, availability, MTBF, and MTTR for your toolset.
• Be first on the tool when it goes down. Make it safe, diagnose the failed component, and restore it. When you escalate to the vendor, bring clear data.
• Close root cause on chronic failures, wafer breakage, and leaks using 8D, FMEA, and Pareto, and verify the fixes hold.
• Analyze alarm histories, maintenance records, and tool data in JMP, SQL, Python, or Excel to spot failure trends before they cause downtime.
• Own the PM schedule, refine vendor PM procedures, and set critical-spares levels, then adjust both from failure history.
• Keep interlocks, gas detection, exhaust and scrubber interfaces, and over-temperature protection working on tools running boron and phosphorus precursors, oxygen, and nitrogen. You’ll do this together with EHS.
• Work with Process Engineering on quartzware life and cleaning cycles, boat load and unload hardware, and temperature profiling.
• Bring tools through install, SAT, and qualification into production. Write down the procedures and train the technicians who run them.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Associate degree