Senior Manager, Software Engineering

Job Title

Senior Manager, Software Engineering

Role Summary

The Senior Engineering Manager, NPD Software will lead a software engineering organization responsible for delivering new product development capabilities for semiconductor capital equipment platforms. The role oversees software strategy, architecture alignment, execution, quality, and cross-functional delivery across control, automation, image processing, data acquisition, and customer-facing workflow software.

This position focuses on disciplined productization of advanced technology from concept through release and field introduction.

Experience Level

Senior - requires 10+ years of professional software engineering experience and 5+ years of engineering management experience leading software teams through new product development and release execution.

Responsibilities

Lead end-to-end software delivery for NPD programs and drive engineering discipline, cross-functional integration, and long-term platform health.

• Lead NPD software through requirements, architecture, implementation, verification, release, and sustaining transition.
• Own software execution for new product programs to meet scope, schedule, quality, reliability, and customer commitments.
• Partner with systems, hardware, optics, algorithms, applications, product management, manufacturing, service, and program management for integrated solutions.
• Drive architecture, design reviews, code quality, technical debt reduction, cybersecurity readiness, scalability, and maintainability.
• Ensure robust hardware/software integration for motion control, sensors, image acquisition, data pipelines, recipe execution, diagnostics, and automation workflows.
• Establish requirements traceability, defect management, configuration management, CI/CD, automated testing, release readiness, and change control.
• Lead root-cause analysis and corrective actions for complex software and field escalation issues.
• Build, mentor, and retain a high-performing global engineering team; develop staffing, capability roadmaps, and succession plans.
• Communicate program status, risks, trade-offs, and recovery plans to senior leadership and stakeholders.

Requirements

Must-have technical and leadership experience. Preferred items listed separately.

• 10+ years delivering complex instrument-control, automation, embedded, distributed, or high-performance software systems.
• 5+ years managing software engineering teams through NPD, release execution, and cross-functional delivery.
• Experience with semiconductor capital equipment, industrial automation, scientific instrumentation, robotics, metrology, inspection, or similar cyber-physical systems.
• Strong knowledge of software development lifecycle practices: architecture, requirements management, design/code reviews, test strategy, defect triage, release governance, and sustaining handoff.
• Experience leading global or distributed teams and coordinating across multiple engineering functions and time zones.
• Ability to translate product objectives into technical plans, deliverables, and engineering priorities; strong stakeholder-management and communication skills.
• Willingness and ability to travel internationally at least 20% of the time.
• Roles may require U.S. export licensing review for applicants who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience with C++, C#, .NET, Python, Windows/Linux systems, real-time control, distributed systems, image/data processing pipelines, databases, or UI software.
• Familiarity with semiconductor inspection/metrology, wafer handling, recipe management, SECS/GEM, equipment diagnostics, and factory automation.
• Experience with Agile, hybrid Agile, or phase-gate NPD models, software quality metrics, static analysis, automated regression testing, and release-readiness dashboards.
• Experience with customer escalations, factory acceptance, system qualification, and field introduction of complex platforms.

Education Requirements

Required: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Physics, or a related technical discipline. Preferred: Master’s degree in a relevant technical field.

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.