Senior CZ Silicon Crystal Growth Engineer

Role Purpose

We are seeking a highly experienced, hands-on Technical Specialist to serve as the site's technical authority for Czochralski (CZ) silicon crystal growth in a high-volume solar ingot manufacturing facility. The role combines floor-level process mastery with engineering rigor: you will work side by side with operators, technicians, maintenance and engineering teams to stabilize and optimize puller performance, and you will use data and structured experimentation to drive durable improvements in ingot quality, yield, throughput, furnace uptime, consumable utilization and manufacturing cost.

The role also supports production scale-up and next-generation process development, and carries a strong mentoring responsibility: the Specialist is expected to raise the crystal-growth capability of the whole organization, not only solve individual problems.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the site subject-matter expert for Czochralski (CZ) crystal growth, providing technical leadership and final escalation support for puller, hot-zone, process, and crystal-quality issues.
• Own and optimize CZ recipes, operating windows, process controls, SOPs, setup procedures, control plans, and reaction plans across the full crystal-growth cycle.
• Provide hands-on production-floor troubleshooting for growth instability, diameter control, defects, yield loss, process excursions, furnace downtime, and equipment-related variation.
• Drive improvements in crystal quality and manufacturing performance, including diameter consistency, resistivity uniformity, defect reduction, yield, throughput, energy efficiency, consumable life, and scrap.
• Analyze furnace trends, process data, materials, equipment condition, and downstream wafer results to identify root causes and implement sustainable corrective actions.
• Design and execute DOE, production trials, capability studies, and validation plans, translating results into standardized production processes.
• Partner with Equipment Engineering, Maintenance, Quality, and downstream operations to improve puller reliability, hot-zone performance, process capability, and wafering outcomes.
• Lead new product and process introduction, including recipe development, equipment qualification, technology transfer, commissioning, and manufacturing readiness.
• Evaluate changes to feedstock, dopants, crucibles, graphite, hot-zone components, furnace hardware, controls, and downstream specifications to ensure process stability and product quality.
• Mentor engineers, technicians, and operators in crystal-growth fundamentals, furnace operation, defect recognition, process control, and troubleshooting.
• Ensure all process development and production activities meet applicable safety, environmental, quality, and change-control requirements.
• Requires appropriate personal protective equipment and strict adherence to high-temperature-process, material-handling and EHS requirements.
• Because crystal growth runs continuously, occasional off-shift, weekend or travel support may be required during critical troubleshooting, furnace start-ups, hot-zone changes, commissioning, supplier trials and ramp activities.

Experiences/Education - Required

• Bachelor's degree in Materials Science, Chemical, Mechanical or Manufacturing Engineering, Physics or a related technical discipline; equivalent extensive, directly relevant experience may be considered.
• 10+ years of hands-on experience in CZ silicon crystal growth, preferably in solar or semiconductor silicon manufacturing.
• Demonstrated expertise with monocrystalline CZ pullers, including large-diameter ingot production in a high-volume environment.
• Proven ability to independently troubleshoot and optimize recipes, furnace behavior, hot-zone performance, diameter control, thermal profiles and growth stability on the manufacturing floor.
• Strong knowledge of crystal-growth fundamentals: thermal gradients, melt dynamics, solidification, doping, defect formation, impurity control and crystal-quality drivers.
• Practical understanding of furnace controls and high-temperature materials behavior (graphite, quartz, insulation).
• Demonstrated success improving ingot yield, usable length, quality, resistivity consistency, furnace productivity, uptime, consumable life or manufacturing cost.
• Experience with structured problem-solving and statistical methods such as DOE, SPC, FMEA, 8D/A3, root-cause analysis and corrective/preventive action.
• Experience interpreting furnace data, alarm histories, ingot-inspection results, resistivity/lifetime measurements and downstream wafer feedback.
• Strong leadership, mentoring and cross-functional collaboration skills; excellent written and verbal communication.
• Ability and willingness to work on the production floor for the majority of the workday.

Experiences/Education - Desired

• Experience with advanced solar silicon products, e.g., n-type or high-efficiency material, low-oxygen processes, or products supporting TOPCon, HJT and other advanced cell architectures.
• Experience with recharge or continuous CZ and with scaling pulling operations for high-volume solar manufacturing.
• Experience with hot-zone design, thermal simulation, crucible technology, graphite/insulation selection or furnace-control optimization.
• Experience leading puller start-up, hot-zone qualification, equipment commissioning, process transfer or new-product introduction.
• Familiarity with ingot and wafer metrology: resistivity, minority-carrier lifetime, oxygen/carbon content, crystal defects, geometry, bow, warp and yield metrics.
• Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma or equivalent continuous-improvement training.
• Experience with MES, SCADA or historian systems and data-analysis tools (JMP, Minitab, Python, SQL or advanced Excel).