Senior Systems Engineer

Onto Innovation•Milpitas, CA

12h

About The Position

The Senior Systems Engineer is the Service Sustaining NPI Engineer and owns service readiness and lifecycle support for released Onto Innovation products. The role applies NPI discipline after product release to prepare CIPs, upgrades, FCOs, obsolescence mitigations, refurbishment programs, and major product changes for efficient global field deployment. It serves as the Service technical owner across Engineering, Field Service, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Product Management, and Service Marketing, with the goal of improving tool uptime, reducing service costs, extending product life, and keeping the installed base supportable throughout the product lifecycle. The engineer is accountable for sustaining the service infrastructure for released products, including FRU strategy, service BOMs, retrofit and upgrade kits, service tooling, technical documentation, training plans, spare-parts readiness, and rollout plans. Success requires system-level troubleshooting, disciplined change management, hands-on service knowledge, and the ability to turn field issues and business opportunities into executable engineering programs. Onto Innovation describes itself as a process-control company serving the semiconductor value chain. It offers competitive salaries and benefits and aims to foster a collaborative, inclusive workplace.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Engineering or a related technical discipline.
At least 5 years of experience in semiconductor capital equipment, electronics, automation systems, or related industries.
Experience as a systems engineer, field service engineer, sustaining engineer, or product support engineer supporting complex semiconductor capital equipment.
Experience supporting released products through engineering changes, field retrofits, upgrades, or FCO rollouts.
Strong understanding of service BOMs, FRU strategy, spare-parts planning, and field service documentation.
Experience coordinating cross-functional technical projects involving Engineering, Field Service, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and Product or Service Marketing.
Ability to translate field issues into structured problem statements, root-cause investigations, corrective actions, and measurable service improvements.
Working knowledge of ECO/ECN/SCR processes, configuration control, and product lifecycle management.

Nice To Haves

Experience with semiconductor capital equipment installed-base support, field upgrades, retrofit kits, or customer-facing corrective actions.
Experience with cost-of-service reduction, obsolescence mitigation, second-source qualification, or repair and refurbishment programs.
Familiarity with service readiness metrics such as MTTR, MTBF, spares availability, installation labor, PM duration, documentation readiness, and service cost.
Experience building rollout packages for global field teams, including kit plans, service procedures, training, and customer communication inputs.
Practical hands-on experience with complex electromechanical, optical, automation, or metrology and inspection systems.

Responsibilities

Own service readiness for sustaining releases, ensuring documentation, training, spares, tooling, service BOMs, support infrastructure, and field validation requirements are complete before deployment.
Represent field service requirements in engineering change and sustaining program reviews.
Capture and prioritize Voice of Service feedback from the global service organization.
Lead reliability and serviceability improvements using field performance data.
Identify ways to improve MTTR, preventive maintenance duration, FRU replacement efficiency, and service tooling effectiveness.
Coordinate root-cause investigations and preventive actions for recurring field issues.
Feed post-release lessons learned into DFS requirements and future product development.
Maintain released-product service infrastructure, including service BOMs, FRU definitions, recommended stocking lists, service tooling, troubleshooting content, PM and FRU procedures, training materials, and escalation paths.
Define field rollout requirements for CIPs, upgrades, retrofits, and FCOs, including kit content, labor assumptions, tooling, documentation, training, and regional deployment support.
Ensure documentation and training updates are released before field deployment of major changes.
Coordinate ECO/ECN/PCN readiness with service documentation, parts release, configuration control, and field communication.
Ensure field upgrade kits, retrofit plans, and service documentation are available before product release.
Track rollout effectiveness and incorporate field feedback into follow-on improvements.
Partner with supply chain and planning to ensure spares, kits, and replacement components are available before customer rollout.
Analyze field reliability, service cost, escalation trends, spare consumption, and upgrade adoption data to prioritize sustaining initiatives.
Support cost-of-service reduction through design improvements, second-source opportunities, repair strategies, tooling improvements, documentation and training improvements, and PM optimization.
Partner with Service Marketing and Product Management to assess upgrade business cases, installed-base applicability, customer value, and margin impact.