Technical Program Management Director
About the job
- A BS or MS in Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, Physics, or a related semiconductor discipline is required; a PhD is preferred.
- At least 12 years of semiconductor industry experience, including at least 5 years in technical program management, business management, or engineering leadership roles.
- Strong working knowledge of advanced semiconductor process technologies, including DRAM, Logic/Foundry nodes, BEOL integration, FEOL device engineering, etch, deposition, and module integration.
- A proven track record of managing programs directly with major semiconductor manufacturers, such as IDMs, foundries, or memory makers, at the VP/Director level and above.
- Demonstrated ability to manage large, multi-workstream programs with rigorous schedule, budget, and risk management discipline.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to distill complex technical topics into clear executive summaries and customer-ready presentations.
- Lead end-to-end program management for strategic customer engagements, including Technology Review Meetings (TRMs), yield improvement task forces, and cost reduction initiatives; own program scoping, planning, risk management, and execution to plan of record.
- Prepare and present executive-level materials, including slide decks, agendas, and executive summaries, for meetings with customer VPs, CTOs, EVPs, and internal senior leadership; represent Applied Materials with credibility and technical authority.
- Drive alignment across multiple business units, integrated development teams, and cross-functional teams through structured weekly and monthly review cadences.
- Coordinate program execution across U.S. headquarters and international sites in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, managing across time zones, cultural contexts, and customer organizational structures.
- Proactively identify, assess, and retire program risks; lead trade-off assessments and critical-path analysis to support timely decision-making and escalation.
- Maintain a disciplined program cadence with detailed meeting minutes, action item tracking, milestone reporting, and weekly/monthly executive status updates; ensure transparency on program performance, risks, gaps, and help needed.
- Partner with business development and strategy teams to shape new module engagement opportunities, translate customer requirements into actionable program plans, and align demo/development priorities with business objectives.
- Experience in semiconductor equipment or materials companies, such as Applied Materials, Lam Research, or Tokyo Electron.
- Familiarity with Product Development Process (PDP) frameworks, phase-gate methodologies, and program management tools such as Accolade/PDBoK.
- Bilingual ability in English and Korean, English and Mandarin, or English and Japanese is strongly preferred given the global customer base.
- Experience leading cost reduction, yield improvement, or technology roadmap alignment programs with customers.
- A track record of managing programs that span multiple technology nodes or product generations simultaneously.
About the company
Applied Materials designs and builds precision machines that chipmakers and display manufacturers use to form, shape and inspect thin layers of material. Its platforms handle steps such as depositing films and removing unwanted material, helping chipmakers create transistors and wiring at atomic scale. Customers include makers of logic chips and memory, as well as manufacturers of advanced displays. The company earns money from equipment sales, replacement parts and services, and factory software that schedules production and monitors manufacturing processes. Applied Materials was founded in 1967 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
Company Size
10,001+
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
Santa Clara, California
Founded
1967
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Installed equipment brings repeat business: Applied Global Services sells long-term service agreements, replacement parts and equipment upgrades.
- Sales are expanding: Applied's August 2026 report showed fiscal Q3 revenue of $9.12 billion, up 25% yearly.
- Employees join profitable operations: Applied reported $3.08 billion of operating profit for fiscal Q3 in August 2026.
What critics are saying
- Singapore manufacturing hires face late shifts: Applied's live engineering posting specifies 4 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. schedules.
- Export compliance has real costs: Applied and its Korea subsidiary settled a $252 million penalty in February 2026.
- Sales depend on China access: Applied's December 2025 filing attributed 30% of fiscal 2025 revenue to customers there.
What makes Applied Materials unique
- Applied combines manufacturing steps under vacuum: its Endura copper platform integrates seven processes to protect delicate material interfaces.
- Factory software reaches beyond chips: Applied SmartFactory serves battery and pharmaceutical manufacturers alongside semiconductor plants.
- Research targets future chip generations: Applied's EPIC partners work on technology three to four generations ahead of production.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
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Life Insurance
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Relocation Assistance
Performance Bonus
Stock Options
Flexible Work Hours
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
0%1 year growth
-1%2 year growth
-1%Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) expects to gain more than two percentage points of wafer-fab-equipment market share by 2030, driven by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. The company outlined its strategy at the SEMICON West technology breakfast. Chief executive officer Gary Dickerson said AI spending is concentrating in leading-edge logic, DRAM memory and advanced packaging, which should make up about 75% of incremental industry growth. For 2030, Applied targets a 54% non-GAAP gross margin, a 40% operating margin and more than $12 billion in services revenue. It expects more than $1 billion in high-bandwidth-memory packaging revenue this year. The company plans to more than double its laboratory and manufacturing capacity, and return 80% to 100% of free cash flow to shareholders.
Applied Materials stock trades at 39.5 times adjusted earnings for the past twelve months, despite sales growth of just 7.8% over the period. The price leans on forecasts that sales will rise 36.3% between fiscal 2026 and fiscal 2027, with profit growing 40.0%. Net margin is expected to widen from 27% in fiscal 2025 to 31% in fiscal 2027. On those estimates, the stock costs 38.7 times fiscal 2026 profit and 27.7 times fiscal 2027 profit. Sales growth reached 24.8% in the most recent quarter, up from declines earlier in the year. Management said clean room space at customers' factories will limit shipments in 2027, and costs could squeeze margins. The company presents to investors on October 13, 2026, at SEMICON West.
Applied Materials chief executive officer Gary Dickerson called AI the biggest economic "inflection" point of our lifetime. He spoke about the company's $5 billion EPIC Center in Silicon Valley, its research into next-generation chips, and surging demand for AI chips. Dickerson made the remarks on "The Claman Countdown.
Applied Materials unveiled its Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center in Sunnyvale, California, on October 12, 2026. The $5 billion facility is billed as the world's largest dedicated to collaborative semiconductor process technology and equipment R&D. Chipmakers, systems companies, equipment partners and universities will work alongside Applied's engineers. Founding partners are TSMC, Intel, Samsung Electronics, Micron and SK hynix. Broadcom, Advantest, SCREEN, KIOXIA and Besi join as innovation partners, along with five research universities. The 600,000-square-foot building holds nearly four acres of cleanroom space. It aims to remove the handoffs between materials research, equipment development and pilot production, speeding new chip technologies to volume manufacturing for the AI era. Applied expects capital spending to scale to about $5 billion as customer projects begin.
Applied Materials and SK Hynix both sit at the heart of the AI chip boom, but a comparison of the two favours the memory maker for 2026. SK Hynix leads on growth, valuation and recent profitability. In fiscal 2025, SK Hynix revenue rose about 46.8% to nearly $72.5 billion, with net income near $32.1 billion. Applied Materials posted revenue of nearly $28.4 billion, up about 4.4%, and net income of about $7.0 billion. SK Hynix trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 7x, against 41x for Applied Materials. Its operating margin has topped 50% in recent quarters. Risks differ. Applied Materials faces export controls and settled a $252 million penalty over unauthorised exports. SK Hynix faces volatile memory prices and rivals Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology.