Sr. Field Service Engineer

Lam Research•Hillsboro, OR

49d

About The Position

The Sr. Field Service Engineer is a senior technical leadership role within Direct Field Service, which supports customer success through on-site installation, repair, preventive maintenance, engineering change upgrades, escalation support, and equipment lifecycle service for Lam equipment. The organization focuses on safe, high-quality, scalable execution that improves installed-base performance, productivity, customer trust, and business results. At the FSE4 or FSE5 level, the engineer serves as Engineer in Charge (EIC), senior technical owner, and technical counterpart to service management. The role emphasizes technical leadership rather than primarily shift coverage or transactional repairs. It owns complex troubleshooting, structured problem solving, technical recovery plans, installation and machine-performance execution, and customer-facing technical communication. The engineer turns ambiguous problems into evidence-based models, executable plans, safe work plans, clear decisions, and measurable results, maintaining technical continuity until success criteria are met or ownership is formally transferred. The role provides hands-on technical leadership primarily during core business hours to align with customer, engineering, spares, quality, and management decision cycles. It also supports business-critical off-shift escalations, planned execution, or recovery needs in accordance with site coverage plans, working-hour requirements, and company policy.

Requirements

FSE4: Bachelor’s degree in Electronics, Engineering, or a related technical field with 7+ years of relevant semiconductor equipment service, installation, escalation, or product-support experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
FSE5: Bachelor’s degree in Electronics, Engineering, or a related technical field with 10+ years of relevant semiconductor equipment experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience, plus demonstrated technical-manager-level leadership and product-line impact.
Demonstrated success as an EIC, technical lead, escalation owner, installation lead, project owner, or equivalent leader for complex semiconductor capital equipment.
Ability to create structured problem-solving models, test plans, technical recovery strategies, risk assessments, customer-ready reports, and defensible troubleshooting models using schematics, logs, tool data, procedures, parts history, process symptoms, and failure signatures.
Ability to influence cross-functional teams and communicate effectively with technicians, engineers, managers, customers, and executives.
Willingness to work in a clean room while wearing personal protective safety equipment or a cleanroom suit.
Ability to frequently bend, stoop, reach, walk, sit, twist, squat, kneel, climb, and stand to perform job tasks for extended periods.
Willingness to travel frequently, domestically and internationally, based on customer needs.
Flexibility to work a variety of shifts, including compressed and alternative workweeks, and to work overtime and on-call if needed.

Nice To Haves

Deep product, subsystem, fleet, and customer-site knowledge, with the ability to translate technical detail into customer impact, business risk, recovery options, committed timing, and clear leadership requests.
Recognized expertise in MBPS, escalation management, installation execution, machine availability, complex recovery leadership, or installed-base performance improvement.
Excellent technical writing, data analysis, presentation, executive communication, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
Experience developing FSEs, leading OJT, supporting certification, establishing repeatable troubleshooting methods, and raising overall team technical capability.

Responsibilities

Serve as Engineer in Charge or senior technical owner for assigned product lines, tool sets, installations, escalations, upgrades, conversions, and recovery projects, with accountability for technical outcomes and customer and company commitments.
Establish executable technical plans defining the problem, success criteria, decision points, owners, timing, resources, risk controls, and escalation thresholds.
Lead complex, ambiguous, intermittent, chronic, or high-impact troubleshooting from containment through hypothesis development, modeling, testing, verification, permanent resolution, and recurrence prevention.
Create and maintain Model Based Problem Solving (MBPS) artifacts, including problem statements, system models, fault hypotheses, test matrices, decision trees, evidence, conclusions, and next actions.
Develop game plans covering work sequence, resources, parts, procedures, data capture, hold points, recovery options, and success criteria.
Create, review, and lead Pre-Task Plans, risk assessments, procedure reviews, safe-state verification, and stop-work decision points for high-risk, complex, or non-standard work.
Lead technical execution for installations, evaluations, upgrades, conversions, qualifications, productivity programs, and sustaining recovery efforts, including OIM/microschedule content, dependencies, risks, hold points, and recovery paths.
Drive technical recovery for critical down tools, recurring failures, machine availability gaps, MDWP events, and product-performance issues within assigned scope.
Analyze tool history, logs, symptoms, parts usage, MA/SUDT events, and Pareto data to identify dominant failure modes, improvement opportunities, and prevention plans.
Drive cross-functional actions with Product Group, RPS/GPS, spares, quality, account teams, service management, and customer technical stakeholders.
Prepare technical reports, escalation packages, AARs, Pareto summaries, installation updates, executive summaries, and decision requests that distinguish verified facts, hypotheses, assumptions, risks, and decisions.
Present tool status, technical conclusions, risks, recovery paths, progress, and leadership requests to customers, service management, Product Group, and internal executive forums.
Maintain continuity across shifts and functions through status updates, documentation, action integration, and formal handoffs until success criteria are met or ownership is transferred.
Train and mentor new hires and developing FSEs through OJT, certification support, troubleshooting reviews, procedure discipline, and structured knowledge transfer.
Provide hands-on technical leadership primarily during core business hours and support business-critical off-shift escalation, planned execution, or recovery needs in accordance with site coverage plans, working-hour requirements, and company policy.