Engineering Team Lead - Deposition and Etch
Job Summary
The Team Leader oversees daily team operations, talent development, and strategic execution to drive core business objectives within the deposition and etch cell.
Team Leadership & Development: Guide daily operations, mentor team members, and foster professional growth.
Operational Execution: Ensure high-quality, on-time delivery of team deliverables and project milestones.
Process Optimization: Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance efficiency and workflows.
Strategic Collaboration: Partner with cross-functional stakeholders to align team goals with broader business strategy.
Responsibility
Team Leadership & People Management
Direct Team Oversight: Lead, mentor, and develop a team of process engineers, technicians and cleanroom associates focused on deposition and etch operations within a high-specification semiconductor cleanroom.
Goal & Performance Alignment: Set clear, measurable KPIs and deliverables aligned with customer milestones, conducting robust performance reviews and coaching to build operational resilience across multiple concurrent projects.
Capability & Skills Development: Own the cell’s technical training and skills matrix to ensure sustained engineering capacity, adaptability, and career progression.
Culture & Collaboration: Champion core behavioural standards, fostering an inclusive, high-collaboration, and innovative culture across cross-functional engineering and manufacturing teams.
Technical Execution & Process Engineering
Advanced Cell Operations: Oversee process development and baseline stability for deposition and etch modules, specializing in precision III-V semiconductor materials.
Tool & Recipe Development: Direct recipe development, optimization, and failure analysis utilizing RIE, ICP-RIE, PECVD, ALD, SEM, and FIB-SEM platforms.
New Equipment & Technology Integration: Lead the qualification, installation, and baselining of new capital equipment and advanced process technologies alongside comprehensive standard operating documentation.
Quality, Data & Continuous Improvement
Quality-First Framework: Embed a "quality first" standard across all product lifecycle stages, enforcing rigorous cleanroom safety protocols, change control and Out-of-Control Action Plans (OCAPs).
Data-Driven Engineering: Drive empirical decision-making across the team using Design of Experiments (DoE), Statistical Process Control (SPC), Gauge R&R, and advanced statistical analysis (e.g., Minitab).
Structured Problem Solving: Facilitate rapid root cause analysis and resolution for complex yield and reliability issues using 8D, pFMEA, and mFMEA frameworks.
Strategy & Stakeholder Coordination
Strategic Roadmap Alignment: Align deposition and etch cell capabilities with the overarching business goals, yield targets, and the long-term technical roadmap.
Stakeholder Coordination: Partner with module leads, integration engineers, operations, and quality stakeholders to standardize best practices and scale technical innovations reliably across the fab.
Requirements
Bachelor’s/Master’s/PhD in Materials Science, Physics, Semiconductor Technology, Engineering, or related field.
5+ years of semiconductor process engineering experience in a high-specification cleanroom.
3+ years of technical team leadership/mentoring experience, including KPI and skills management.
Strong experience with III-V materials (InP, GaAs, GaN) and semiconductor etch/deposition processes, including RIE, ICP-RIE, PECVD, and ALD.
Hands-on experience with SEM/FIB-SEM for process and failure analysis.
Proven experience in process development, optimization, transfer, and equipment qualification/commissioning.
Strong knowledge of DoE, SPC, MSA/Gauge R&R, and quality tools such as 8D, FMEA, QCP, and OCAP.
Strong analytical, communication, problem-solving, and cross-functional collaboration skills; able to work independently and under pressure.
- Department
- Process Engineering - Ipswich
- Locations
- Huawei Ipswich Research Center
Huawei Ipswich Research Center
Workplace & culture
This is a place where expertise and passion come together to unlock something really special to create an exciting future. Working at Huawei R&D UK, you will meet dedicated people who are passionate to bring the best product and service to customers.
About Huawei R&D UK
Huawei’s vision is a fully connected, intelligent world.
To achieve this, we work to inspire passion for basic research around the world. Our combined passion drives development across the global innovation value chain. Huawei has the largest Research and Development organization in the world with 96,000+ employees in research centers around the globe. In the UK, we already have design centers in Cambridge, London, Edinburgh, Ipswich and Bristol. We continue to explore and define new research directions and new services. We have expanded our collaborations with academic researchers; researched new network architectures, integration of communications and key enabling technologies; and developed the fundamental theories of these technologies.