Manager, Customer Engineer

Key Responsibilities

• Team Leadership and Performance Management
• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of customer engineers, equipment engineers, and technicians.
• Manage employee performance, coaching, training, career development, and succession planning.
• Establish clear goals and monitor individual and team achievements.
• Manage workforce planning, technician capabilities, resource allocation, and coverage requirements.
• Interview, hire, onboard, and train engineers and technicians based on business needs.
• Maintain strong employee engagement through consistent communication and development planning.
• Identify and develop future managers and technical specialists.
• Promote accountability, collaboration, safety, and technical excellence.

Equipment Performance and Reliability

• Own equipment uptime, availability, reliability, and operational performance.
• Support equipment installation, start-up, qualification, maintenance, and warranty activities.
• Drive root-cause analysis for equipment failures, recurring defects, process excursions, and reliability issues.
• Develop corrective and preventive actions to prevent repeat failures.
• Establish preventive and predictive maintenance strategies.
• Monitor KPIs such as uptime, MTBF, MTTR, PM compliance, response time, and customer satisfaction.
• Act as the escalation point for complex technical and operational issues.
• Manage system-down escalations and ensure the earliest possible return to service.

Technical and Process Support

• Provide technical leadership across semiconductor equipment platforms such as:
• Dry Etch
• CVD/PECVD
• PVD/Sputter Deposition
• Work closely with process engineering teams to translate process requirements into equipment solutions.
• Troubleshoot chamber-matching issues, particle problems, equipment-related process excursions, and yield-impacting events.
• Support hardware upgrades, engineering evaluations, productivity projects, and process qualifications.
• Apply RCA, SPC, FMEA, equipment-health monitoring, and data analytics to identify risks and improve equipment performance.

Customer and Business Management

• Ensure customer satisfaction with service delivery, equipment performance, and technical support.
• Build effective relationships with customer stakeholders in a high-volume semiconductor manufacturing environment.
• Forecast manpower, financial, and operational requirements.
• Manage equipment start-ups based on agreed timelines and cost requirements.
• Support service agreements, warranty operations, and paid-service activities.
• Manage local inventory, spare-parts readiness, RMA procedures, and warranty costs.
• Maintain DSO and other operational targets according to business requirements.
• Prepare timely and accurate operational and performance reports.

Continuous Improvement and Compliance

• Drive improvements in equipment uptime, cycle time, technical performance, productivity, and cost.
• Lead data-driven transformation and operational-excellence initiatives.
• Champion 6S, EHS, and appropriate safety practices.
• Ensure compliance with company policies, business-conduct standards, and ethical requirements.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or a related technical discipline.
• Minimum 8 years of semiconductor equipment experience.
• At least 1–2 years of people-management, team-lead, or technician-supervision experience.
• Recent experience in field service, customer engineering, or semiconductor equipment engineering.
• Strong technical knowledge of at least one semiconductor equipment area, preferably Dry Etch, CVD/PECVD, or PVD.
• Experience in equipment installation, start-up, qualification, troubleshooting, maintenance, and reliability improvement.
• Strong understanding of semiconductor manufacturing and high-volume fab operations.
• Demonstrated experience managing engineers or technicians, including coaching, performance management, workforce planning, and skills development.
• Knowledge of RCA, SPC, FMEA, corrective and preventive actions, and data-driven problem-solving.
• Strong customer engagement, communication, escalation management, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Willingness to work between the Singapore office and customer sites.

Preferred Experience

• Previous experience working with Applied Materials or similar semiconductor equipment manufacturers.
• Familiarity with Applied Materials equipment platforms.
• Experience managing start-ups, warranties, service agreements, inventory, RMA, and equipment-down escalations.
• Experience leading transformation, automation, data analytics, or continuous-improvement initiatives.
• Additional language capabilities may be advantageous for specific customer-facing environments.
• Candidates requiring work authorisation may be considered subject to company assessment; relocation assistance is not provided.