Vice President, Product Engineering

Job Title

Vice President, Product Engineering

Role Summary

Lead global product engineering for multiple indium phosphide (InP) wafer fabrication sites, driving strategy, execution, and organizational performance to deliver stable, scalable, high-yielding, and reliable optoelectronic products. Partner across fabs and functions to move products from development through qualification, ramp, sustaining, cost reduction, and end-of-life.

Experience Level

Senior-level; typically requires 15 or more years of progressive experience in semiconductor, photonics, or optoelectronic product engineering with substantial leadership in a manufacturing environment.

Responsibilities

Accountable for global product engineering strategy, NPI, yield and reliability, multi-fab governance, and cross-functional partnerships.

• Define and execute product engineering strategy, operating model, staffing plan, technical roadmap, and budget for multiple wafer fabs.
• Lead teams responsible for new product introduction, production ramp, sustaining engineering, yield improvement, test strategy, and product characterization.
• Establish manufacturing readiness criteria, qualification plans, control plans, test limits, data requirements, and production ramp plans.
• Drive yield, electrical/optical performance, test yield, outgoing quality, reliability, and cost-improvement programs using SPC, DOE, fault isolation, and root-cause analysis.
• Standardize product engineering processes, metrics, data systems, documentation, and technical reviews across sites while addressing site-specific capabilities.
• Chair product performance, yield, quality, reliability, and manufacturing readiness reviews and provide executive-level visibility into risks and recovery plans.
• Partner with operations, process engineering, quality, supply chain, packaging, commercial, and program teams to align product and manufacturing plans.
• Serve as the senior technical interface for customer escalations and ensure disciplined handling of technical and customer information.

Requirements

Must-have qualifications and demonstrable experience.

• 15+ years of progressive experience in semiconductor, photonics, or optoelectronic product engineering with substantial leadership in manufacturing.
• Proven success leading product engineering across multiple products, technologies, manufacturing sites, or geographically distributed teams.
• Deep practical knowledge of device manufacturing, including epitaxy, wafer fabrication, optical and electrical test, reliability, and packaging interfaces.
• Documented track record of improving yield, product performance, reliability, manufacturing stability, cycle time, and cost via data-driven engineering.
• Expertise in new product introduction, product qualification, production ramp, configuration and change control, statistical methods, and structured problem solving.
• Experience building organizations, developing leaders, managing technical talent, and prioritizing resources across complex product portfolios.
• Executive-level communication and influencing skills with cross-functional and customer-facing stakeholders.
• Ability to travel regularly among wafer-fab locations, suppliers, partners, and customer sites as business needs require.
• Nice-to-have: experience with InP-based devices, high-volume wafer fab operations, automated data/MES/PLM systems, fab-to-fab transfers, supplier management, and familiarity with ISO 9001 and industry-specific quality standards.

Education Requirements

Required: Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, materials science, physics, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, or a related technical field. An advanced technical or business degree (e.g., MS, MBA) is strongly preferred.

About the Company

Company: Lumentum

Headquarters: Milpitas, California, United States

Lumentum develops optical and photonic products and subsystems for telecommunications, data centers, cloud computing and industrial applications, providing lasers, modulators, transceivers and test solutions that enable high-speed networking and advanced photonics.