Senior Staff, Customer Quality Engineering (CQE)

Renesas Electronics•San Jose, CA

About The Position

Renesas Electronics is seeking a Senior Staff Quality Engineer to serve as the customer-facing quality lead for top-tier hyperscale datacenter and cloud customers. The position drives technical quality execution for semiconductor products used in AI compute, server, networking, storage, and power-delivery platforms. The role leads customer escalations, translates customer expectations into internal execution plans, and builds customer confidence through clear communication, rapid response, data-driven analysis, and measurable quality improvement. This is a senior individual-contributor role combining deep technical work with strategic customer engagement. The engineer partners with customer engineering, supplier quality, operations, and executive teams, while coordinating Renesas functions globally. The role has no direct people-management responsibility, but is expected to influence priorities, mentor teams, and drive closure of high-visibility customer issues. Domestic and international travel is required for customer meetings, audits, quality reviews, and escalation support. The expected annual pay range is $159,000–$198,000, with eligibility for bonus opportunities. Final offer amount depends on geographic location, applicable experience, and skillset. Renesas offers elective benefits including medical, a health savings account with an applicable medical plan, dental, vision, health and/or dependent care flexible spending accounts, pre-tax commuter benefits, life insurance, AD&D, and pet insurance. Benefited employees also receive company-paid life insurance and AD&D, LTD, short-term medical benefits, paid sick time, paid holidays, and accrued paid vacation. Renesas is an embedded semiconductor solution provider with a global team of more than 21,000 engineers and problem solvers in more than 30 countries. Its culture is described as Transparent, Agile, Global, Innovative, and Entrepreneurial. Renesas is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. The company notes that its dual-use technology is subject to U.S. export control regulations and that it may need to obtain a U.S. government export license before releasing technology to certain persons.

Requirements

Extensive experience supporting top-tier hyperscale datacenter, cloud, AI, server, networking, or similarly demanding strategic customers in a customer-facing semiconductor quality role.
Demonstrated success managing high-visibility customer escalations with urgency, technical credibility, ownership, and disciplined follow-through.
Deep expertise in structured problem solving, root cause analysis, containment, corrective action, effectiveness verification, 8D, and customer communication.
Strong knowledge of semiconductor design and manufacturing flows, including wafer fab, assembly, test, reliability, failure analysis, qualification, change control, and supplier quality.
Working knowledge of quality and reliability methods relevant to datacenter semiconductors, including JEDEC qualification, mission-profile risk assessment, statistical analysis, FMEA, control plans, and traceability.
Excellent executive communication skills, including the ability to present concise technical conclusions, risks, options, and recommended actions to customer and Renesas leadership.
Ability to influence global cross-functional teams without direct authority and operate effectively across time zones during critical escalations.
Availability for domestic and international travel.
10+ years of relevant experience with a BSEE, or 8+ years of relevant experience with an MSEE, or equivalent technical experience.
Customer Quality, Product Engineering, Reliability Engineering, Failure Analysis, or related semiconductor quality experience supporting strategic customers, business units, and cross-functional escalation teams.

Responsibilities

Serve as the primary technical quality interface for top-tier hyperscale datacenter customers, leading quality reviews, executive updates, audits, and complex escalations.
Build working relationships with customer hardware quality, supplier quality, reliability, manufacturing, and engineering teams supporting AI compute, server, networking, storage, and power platforms.
Own customer quality performance analysis, including PPM, RMA, failure-analysis requests, scorecards, recurring trends, qualification status, and customer-specific improvement plans.
Prepare concise, data-backed quality updates communicating technical conclusions, customer risk, containment status, recovery plans, and required decisions.
Translate customer requirements and platform expectations into actionable internal priorities with clear owners, timing, risks, and closure criteria.
Drive end-to-end resolution of complex semiconductor quality issues, from containment through root cause, corrective action, effectiveness verification, and customer closure, using 8D and other structured problem-solving methods.
Lead urgent investigations across wafer fab, assembly/test, product engineering, design, reliability, failure analysis, supply chain, and supplier quality.
Coordinate rapid response for datacenter production interruptions, field returns, qualification concerns, change notifications, and systemic or repeat issues.
Manage sensitive customer escalations through disciplined communication cadence, fact-based reporting, risk assessment, executive-ready summaries, and consistent follow-through.
Ensure corrective actions address immediate failure mechanisms and broader systemic risk across related products, processes, sites, and customers.
Partner with product groups and operations to influence design-for-quality, manufacturing robustness, reliability strategy, traceability, safe-launch controls, and customer-specific quality roadmaps.
Use customer feedback, field data, failure-analysis learning, reliability results, and quality metrics to identify systemic gaps, reduce recurrence, and improve customer perception of Renesas quality execution.
Drive proactive risk reviews for critical datacenter applications, including new product introduction, qualification readiness, manufacturing transitions, product and process changes, and capacity expansion.
Develop scalable best practices for hyperscale customer engagement, escalation management, technical communication, quality documentation, and lessons learned.
Anticipate quality expectations associated with high-volume AI and cloud infrastructure deployments, including accelerated ramp, long service life, continuous operation, and supply continuity.
Provide technical leadership, coaching, and guidance to CQE and cross-functional teams on hyperscale customer expectations, semiconductor quality requirements, and structured problem solving.
Influence global stakeholders without direct authority and align teams around customer-critical deliverables, recovery milestones, and sustainable corrective actions.
Mentor less-experienced engineers and improve the quality of failure-analysis requests, 8D reports, executive summaries, customer presentations, and closure packages.
Balance priorities across products, sites, and escalations while maintaining urgency and transparency for the customer.
Travel domestically and internationally for customer meetings, audits, quality reviews, and escalation support.