Software engineer

Company Overview

KLA is a global leader in diversified electronics for the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. Virtually every electronic device in the world is produced using our technologies. No laptop, smartphone, wearable device, voice-controlled gadget, flexible screen, VR device or smart car would have made it into your hands without us. KLA invents systems and solutions for the manufacturing of wafers and reticles, integrated circuits, packaging, printed circuit boards and flat panel displays. The innovative ideas and devices that are advancing humanity all begin with inspiration, research and development. KLA focuses more than average on innovation and we invest 15% of sales back into R&D. Our expert teams of physicists, engineers, data scientists and problem-solvers work together with the world’s leading technology providers to accelerate the delivery of tomorrow’s electronic devices. Life here is exciting and our teams thrive on tackling really hard problems. There is never a dull moment with us.

Group/Division

With over 40 years of semiconductor process control experience, chipmakers around the globe rely on KLA to ensure that their fabs ramp next-generation devices to volume production quickly and cost-effectively. Enabling the movement towards advanced chip design, KLA's Global Products Group (GPG), which is responsible for creating all of KLA’s metrology and inspection products, is looking for the best and the brightest research scientist, software engineers, application development engineers, and senior product technology process engineers. The Broadband Plasma Division (BBP) provides market-leading patterned wafer optical inspection systems for leading-edge IC manufacturing. Logic, foundry, and memory customers depend on BBP products to detect yield-critical defects for process debug and excursion monitoring at advanced process nodes. BBP flagship products include the 29xx and 39xx series which leverage Broadband Plasma technology to capture a wide range of defects with ultimate sensitivity at the optical inspection speeds needed for inline defect monitoring.

Job Description/Preferred Qualifications

Role Description

Our engineering team builds software and hardware solutions that leverage chip design and layout data to power wafer inspection and defect classification across KLA’s optical and eBeam platforms. These systems operate at scale and are central to delivering high-throughput, high-accuracy inspection for leading semiconductor manufacturers.

As a software engineer, you will work across the stack - developing applications and contributing to the design and validation of the high-performance compute systems that run them. You will collaborate closely with hardware, algorithms, and systems teams, translating complex requirements into scalable, production-ready solutions.

We are looking for engineers with strong learning agility and communication skills who take ownership of unfamiliar problems, ramp quickly in new domains, and leverage modern AI and agentic coding tools to improve development velocity and solution quality.

Key Responsibilities

Design, develop, and maintain software components for inspection and review systems

Work across the stack: UI, backend services, and system integration

Rapidly ramp on new domains and take ownership of ambiguous or unfamiliar problems

Collaborate with hardware and end users to define, specify, and validate solutions

Communicate clearly in design discussions, code reviews, and cross-team interactions

Optimize performance for compute-intensive workloads and system-level efficiency

Leverage and experiment with AI / agentic coding tools to accelerate development and improve outcomes

Contribute to code quality, testing, CI/CD, and shared engineering practices

Required Qualifications

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field

MS +0–3 years or BS +2–5 years of software development experience

Strong proficiency in C++ and experience working in Linux environments

Solid fundamentals in data structures, algorithms, and software design

Demonstrated ability to learn quickly and solve complex problems

Strong written and verbal communication skills

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with high-performance computing or distributed systems

Familiarity with semiconductor, inspection, or similar complex systems

Exposure to hardware/software co-design or system-level performance tuning

Experience with frontend (e.g., React) and backend services

Familiarity with containerization (e.g., Docker)

Experience using AI-assisted or agentic development tools in real workflows

Minimum Qualifications

Master's Level Degree and 0 years related work experience; Bachelor's Level Degree and related work experience of 2 years

We offer a competitive, family friendly total rewards package. We design our programs to reflect our commitment to an inclusive environment, while ensuring we provide benefits that meet the diverse needs of our employees.

Be aware of potentially fraudulent job postings or suspicious recruiting activity by persons that are currently posing as KLA employees. KLA never asks for any financial compensation to be considered for an interview, to become an employee, or for equipment. Further, KLA does not work with any recruiters or third parties who charge such fees either directly or on behalf of KLA . Please ensure that you have searched KLA’s Careers website for legitimate job postings. KLA follows a recruiting process that involves multiple interviews in person or on video conferencing with our hiring managers. If you are concerned that a communication, an interview, an offer of employment, or that an employee is not legitimate, please send an email to talent.acquisition@kla.com to confirm the person you are communicating with is an employee. We take your privacy very seriously and confidentially handle your information.