Backline Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

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

The KLA Services team headquartered in Milpitas, CA is our service organization that consists of Service Sales and Marketing, Spares Supply Chain management, Field Operations, Engineering, Product Training, and Technical Support. The KLA Services organization partners with our field teams and customers in all business sectors to maintain the high performance and productivity of our products through a flexible portfolio of services. Our comprehensive services include: proactive management of tools to identify and improve performance; expertise in optics, image processing and motion control with worldwide service engineers, 24/7 technical support teams and knowledge management systems; and an extensive parts network to ensure worldwide availability of parts.

Job Description/Preferred Qualifications

The Product Service Manager owns the customer experience and unit economics of a KLA product family across its install-base lifetime - from new-product
field readiness through mature-fleet sustaining. You are accountable for Cost of Service, customer satisfaction, escalation governance, fleet
availability, fleet performance, and field readiness for new product introductions. You translate field signal into product, operating-model, and commercial decisions - and hold the line on those decisions across NPI, Sustaining, Tech Support, and Engineering peers. You operate through influence, data, and crisp escalation governance.

What you'll own:

Customer experience & escalation governance

• Drive L0 L4 escalation flow from local CSE through PSO Tech Support, PSO Engineering, and Manufacturing keep field cases moving and prevent escalation drift

• Own the customer-facing voice for service quality across your product family including Quarterly Alignment Meetings (QAM), customer Field Reviews, and recurring customer-of-record cadences (Intel, TSMC, Samsung, Hynix, Micron, and other top fabs

• Hold the line on routing discipline: case path, distribution-list governance, "right team on the right problem"

Cost of Service & financial performance

• Set and defend per-product Cost of Service targets - by product, region, and division

• Drive Sustaining-side Continuous Improvement Programs (CIPs) and FCO planning to bend the CoS curve down

• Own the labor mix (cross-region travel vs. same-region support) and TSE utilization targets

Fleet availability

• Own product-family availability commitments: MTBF, MTTR, escalation duration, L4 frequency

• Use field data - FSR narratives, escalation patterns, parts consumption, fleet hot-spots - to identify systemic risks before they become customer escalations

• Partner with Cross-collaboration services teams and Division team root-cause analysis, retrofit programs, and service support strategy

Fleet performance

• Own product-family performance commitments: throughput, cleanliness, repeatability

• Translate fab-outcome expectations into product-level service deliverables

• Partner with Division GMs whose tools host your product family - your service performance is their tool's uptime

New product field readiness

• Own field readiness for every new product introduction across the family - training plan, documentation strategy, FRU planning, tooling, hedge kits, beta support, RSL

• Gate Phase Exits acceptance: formally accept (or refuse to accept) products from NPI into Volume and Sustaining when readiness streams aren't closed

• Coordinate readiness across multiple concurrent NPI programs - typical PSM scope runs 3-5 NPI programs in parallel

Operating model & coverage

• Set Tech Support coverage strategy by region - including hire plans, regional gaps, and follow-the-sun structure

• Drive Division Self-Sufficiency: shape the operating model so scarce specialists are backline support, not first-line

• Run the Quarterly Alignment Meetings and Business Review cadence with action tracking and lookback discipline

Preferred Qualifications:

• Wafer-handler and/or server / data-system product experience - direct hands-on or service ownership in either domain. Cross-product and platform experience is a strong plus.

• Comfortable with modern AI tooling - actively uses LLM-based copilots, agentic systems, or vector search in day-to-day decision flow. Knows how to ground AI output in source data and how to spot fabrication.

• Treats AI as leverage Data and analytics fluency - comfort with Snowflake, Power BI, Streamlit, or equivalent. Can interrogate data directly without depending on a downstream analyst for every question. Working knowledge of SQL, Python, or R preferred.

• Comfortable distinguishing correlation from causation,
  identifying sample bias, and interpreting fleet-pattern signals.

• Knowledge engineering mindset - believes institutional knowledge should be captured, indexed, and queryable. Contributes to systems that compound teamknowledge over time, not one-off slide decks.

• Awareness of product technology trends - advanced packaging, hybrid bonding, 3D NAND scaling, EUV/High-NA, AI/HPC silicon - and what they mean for service complexity.

• 8+ years in semiconductor capital equipment service, engineering, or operations - with 3+ years in a leadership / management role

• Direct customer-facing experience with top-tier semiconductor fabs

• Demonstrated ownership of customer escalations - including L4-tier and executive-visibility escalations

• Financial fluency - CoS, P&L, OT/labor categorization, headcount planning. You can defend a budget and a forecast in front of a VP

• Influence-without-authority leadership - you've led matrixed teams across NPI, Sustaining, Tech Support, and Engineering and held them to outcomes

• Bachelor's in Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial, or related engineering. Master's preferrered

• Willingness to travel - 25-40% global

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree or higher in related field or equivalent combination of any relevant education and experience. 8+ years of meaningful experiencewith proven track record to lead including 4+ years of management experience.

Base Pay Range: $181,000.00 - $307,700.00 AnnuallyPrimary Location: USA-CA-Milpitas-KLAKLA's total rewards package for employees may also include participation in performance incentive programs and eligibility for additional benefits including but not limited to: medical, dental, vision, life, and other voluntary benefits, 401(K) including company matching, employee stock purchase program (ESPP), student debt assistance, tuition reimbursement program, development and career growth opportunities and programs, financial planning benefits, wellness benefits including an employee assistance program (EAP), paid time off and paid company holidays, and family care and bonding leave.

Interns are eligible for some of the benefits listed. Our pay ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed reflects the pay for this position in the primary location identified in this posting. Actual pay depends on several factors, including state minimum pay wage rates, location, job-related skills, experience, and relevant education level or training. We are committed to complying with all applicable federal and state minimum wage requirements where applicable. If applicable, your recruiter can share more about the specific pay range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

KLA is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We will ensure that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us attalent.acquisition@kla.com or at +1-408-352-2808 to request accommodation.

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.