Principal Systems Engineer

Job Title

Principal Systems Engineer

Role Summary

Lead system architecture, integration, and validation for advanced semiconductor films and OCD metrology equipment. Provide technical authority across optics, mechanics, electronics, software, and controls to ensure performance, reliability, and scalability from concept through production.

Experience Level

Senior-level. The posting requests 10+ years of relevant systems design and integration experience.

Responsibilities

Technical leadership and system delivery across multidisciplinary teams.

• Define and own system architecture and translate product requirements into system and subsystem specifications.
• Lead trade studies, system partitioning, and system-level design reviews.
• Develop, manage, and maintain system requirements with traceability and validation criteria.
• Define and control mechanical, electrical, optical, and software interfaces between subsystems.
• Lead system integration, create system-level test plans, and validate performance against acceptance criteria.
• Perform root cause analysis for system performance issues and drive corrective actions.
• Establish system error budgets, performance models, and sensitivity analyses to ensure reliability under environmental conditions.
• Collaborate with product management, manufacturing, quality, field service, and cross-functional engineering teams; mentor junior engineers.
• Support program planning, risk assessment, milestone delivery, and customer engagements.

Requirements

Core technical and professional qualifications required to perform the role.

• 10+ years of experience in complex system design and integration.
• Proven systems engineering experience in semiconductor equipment, photonics, aerospace, or precision instrumentation industries.
• Strong understanding of multidisciplinary systems including mechanics, optics, electronics, controls, and software.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical teams and influence cross-functional stakeholders.
• Ability to develop system-level test plans, perform root cause analysis, and drive resolution of performance issues.
• Experience establishing performance models, error budgets, and reliability-driven designs.
• Must be able to travel internationally to customer sites at least 20% of the time.

Preferred:

• Experience with semiconductor metrology, inspection, or lithography systems.
• Familiarity with precision motion systems, optics, vacuum systems, laser-based instrumentation, and modeling tools such as MATLAB/Simulink.
• Exposure to cleanroom environments and high-reliability systems.

Education Requirements

Master's degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Optical), Physics, or a related technical field is specified.

About the Company

Company: Onto Innovation

Headquarters: Wilmington, MA, United States

Onto Innovation develops process-control solutions for the semiconductor industry, offering optical inspection, 3D metrology, defect inspection, composition analysis, factory analytics, and lithography technologies to improve yield, performance, and reliability across the semiconductor value chain.