Director of Product Applications Engineer-Lithography Materials

Director of Product Applications Engineer-Lithography Materials-Rolla, MO AreaDESCRIPTION:The Director of Product Applications is a senior technical leader responsible for leading the product applications organization as the global center of product characterization, application readiness, technical collateral, and commercial technical enablement. The Director plays a critical role in enabling the Field Applications Engineering (FAE) organization and commercial teams with the technical tools, data, expertise, and support required to accelerate customer design-in, qualification success, and profitable growth.RESPONSIBILITIES:Define team structure, responsibilities, priorities, and interfaces.Recruit, coach, and develop strong technical talent and establish performance expectations and operating cadence.Build a culture of ownership, urgency, rigor, and customer relevance and create a scalable organization capable of supporting portfolio growth.Implement a Product Application Owner model with one named technical owner per product or platform.Ensure accountability for Best Known Methods (BKMs), Application Notes, process recommendations, application limits / process windows, and technical data packages.Maintain technical consistency across products, customers, and regions.Partner with R&D from concept through commercialization to define critical technical questions for each product.Build characterization strategies that determine performance requirements, failure modes, process sensitivities, customer-use conditions, and manufacturing readiness.Define and implement application methods, screening methods, qualification test plans, correlation studies, and acceptance criteria.Ensure test methods are relevant, repeatable, efficient, and credible for customer adoption.Translate development data into process guidance, product claims support, and release readiness decisions.Own development and maintenance of technical collateral supporting internal and external adoption.Build and maintain BKMs, Application Notes, integration guides, datasheet technical content, qualification support packages, troubleshooting guides, competitive technical summaries, and product training materials.Ensure collateral is accurate, current, differentiated, version-controlled, and globally accessible.Partner with Product Management to align technical collateral with market positioning and launch priorities.Provide FAEs and commercial teams with technical tools required to win commercial opportunities including data packages, process guidance, benchmark data, competitive positioning support, and troubleshooting support.Support strategic customer design-in opportunities for released products when deeper technical engagement is required.Prioritize technical resources against high-value commercial opportunities.Support strategic customer engagement for development materials where customer feedback can shape product direction.Participate directly in selected next-generation customer opportunities with R&D and FAEs.Translate customer learning into product requirements, test priorities, readiness gaps, and commercialization plans.Partner with R&D to improve product transfer and readiness.Partner with Product Management to align technical capabilities with market needs.Partner with Quality / Metrology to ensure relevant measurement methods and data integrity.Partner with Operations to support manufacturability and scale-up.Establish intake, prioritization, resource planning, and review cadence.Define KPIs tied to commercialization outcomes including time-to-first-data, time-to-qualification, product readiness cycle time, technical response time, evaluation-to-win conversion support, and collateral readiness at launch.Lead structured problem solving for critical product or customer issues.Build closed-loop voice-of-customer systems that continuously improve products and application guidance.BACKGROUND PROFILE:BS/MS/PhD in Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, Chemistry, Physics, or related field12+ years in semiconductor materials, process engineering, applications engineering, or advanced packaging5+ years leading technical teamsStrong understanding of customer qualification flows and semiconductor process integrationProven success leading through complexity and organizational changePreferredExperience in lithography materials, packaging materials, temporary bonding/debonding, or process chemicalsExperience leading product commercialization / NPI processesGlobal experience supporting customers across Asia, US, and EuropeStrong data discipline (DOE, correlation studies, SPC, GR&R)Experience with quality systems, FMEA, CAPA, or structured problem solving