Silicon Product Operations Leader

We are seeking an experienced Silicon Product Manufacturing Operations Leader (Senior Director or VP) to lead and optimize the end-to-end manufacturing lifecycle for our custom silicon and semiconductor products. This position will work closely with the silicon architecture team to ensure our designs are optimized for mass production and supply chain teams to ensure our designs are optimized for cost, quality and yield.The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in semiconductor operations, strong leadership skills, and a proven ability to drive high-volume production from NPI to HVM.

This role is hybrid, based out of Santa Clara, Austin, Fort Collins, or Toronto.

Key Responsibilities

• Product Understanding: Develop and maintain comprehensive knowledge of product IP, chiplets, and SoCs, with a focus on understanding mission-mode usage as well as customer needs.
• Oversee manufacturing at foundry and OSAT, ensuring alignment with cost, quality, and yield targets.
• Lead NPI to HVM ramp for multiple custom silicon generations, including advanced technology nodes (5nm, 4nm, 3nm, and beyond).
• Establish and implement manufacturing process control strategies to optimize yield, improve reliability, and enhance efficiency.
• Develop and maintain quality and reliability management systems, ensuring robust validation and compliance across all manufacturing stages.
• Drive packaging and test strategies, overseeing product engineering efforts to improve cost efficiency and time to market.
• Build and scale engineering operations teams, providing leadership in backend product engineering, failure analysis, and validation.
• Collaborate with design, supply chain, and product teams to ensure seamless execution of manufacturing programs.
• Work with supply chain to analyze and improve cost structures, optimizing supply chain efficiencies while maintaining quality and performance.
• Develop long-term manufacturing strategies, ensuring scalability, innovation, and alignment with business objectives.
• Build out a Quality and Reliability team: To conduct thorough investigations and analysis to identify root causes of systematic and random issues affecting quality and reliability, effectively addressing customer observations.
• Build out Data Analysis: Analyze characterization and end-to-end manufacturing data from Wafer Acceptance Testing (WAT), sort, package, and system-level tests to uncover failure mechanisms, identify preventive actions, and address weaknesses in test strategies.
• Test Condition Optimization: Ensure that optimal product test conditions are implemented to achieve maximum yield, quality, and performance while identifying test coverage gaps and initiating data-driven improvement plans.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Maintain effective communication and collaborative relationships with product stakeholders, including Supply Chain team, Product Engineering and Test teams, Quality and Reliability teams, and IP/Chiplet/SoC design and platform debug leads.
• Responsible for initial Silicon Bring-Up and debugging processes, providing critical feedback and recommendations for changes necessary to facilitate volume production.

Qualifications & Experience

• 15+ years of experience in semiconductor manufacturing, operations, and supply chain management.
• Proven experience leading foundry and OSAT operations, including yield optimization, quality management, and cost control.
• Expertise in high-volume silicon production, including advanced technology nodes with leading foundries (Samsung, TSMC, Intel, etc.).
• Strong knowledge of packaging, test engineering, and backend product engineering.
• Experience managing supplier quality engineering, contract manufacturing, and failure analysis labs.
• Deep understanding of NPI to HVM transitions, product lifecycle management, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Excellent leadership and team-building skills, with a track record of growing and mentoring high-performing teams.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or a related field.