Electrical Controls Engineer

To make electronics, you need chips, wafers, transistors, reticles, and... To make these, you must see, test and manufacture them at scale—faster and better than ever before. That's where KLA comes in. Whether you're early in your career or an experienced professional, you'll solve complex challenges, work alongside brilliant minds and help shape the future of technology.

Group/Division The Semiconductor Products and Customers (Semi PC) business unit designs, builds and sells KLA’s product portfolio to help chip manufacturers meet high-quality standards for technologies like AI, data centers, automotive and electronic devices. Our inspection, metrology, and analytics systems detect and monitor defects across logic and memory chips, specialty semiconductors, wafers, reticles, advanced packaging, process equipment and materials. We also develop technologies for specialty processes, IC substrates, and PCB manufacturing, including etch and deposition, component inspection, and imaging and analytics.

KLA's Central Engineering organization is made up of nine Centers of Excellence (CoEs) spanning disciplines like automation, motion control, sensors, platform design, and packaging. Each CoE contributes not only technical deliverables but also deep expertise, best practices, and advanced tools that elevate both what we build—and how we build it.

What You'll DoIn this role, you will play a key part in advancing business priorities by delivering high-impact work across your area of expertise.

Do you enjoy solving complex control problems and seeing your designs deployed on real machines? We are seeking an engineer to own the development of machine control and safety systems from concept through deployment. This role includes requirements development, electrical architecture, hardware selection, safety system design, PLC implementation, system integration, validation, and field commissioning. We are looking for engineers who view PLC programming as one part of a complete machine control solution.

What We Need You to DoAs part of KLA's engineering team, you will work with electrical, mechanical, software, systems, and applications engineers to create safe, reliable, and maintainable automation systems for the semiconductor industry. This includes conducting design reviews covering electrical architecture, safety concepts, selected hardware, control implementation, software quality, and developing test strategies, solving system issues, and driving corrective actions that improve product performance and reliability.  

Successful candidates have experience developing complete systems rather than solely programming PLCs. They understand how electrical hardware, safety systems, industrial networks, instrumentation, software, and mechanical systems interact to produce a robust machine solution.

Through close collaboration with engineers, physicists, software developers, and external suppliers, you will be expected to take ownership of technical challenges, partake in architectural decisions, and help deliver high-quality solutions for critical applications. Occasional cleanroom work is required, along with up to 20% domestic and international travel.

Key responsibilities include:

Develop machine-level control architectures, electrical designs, and functional safety concepts.

Define I/O architectures, field device selection, network topologies, power distribution, and control panel requirements.

Create and maintain electrical schematics, wiring diagrams, control narratives, interface specifications, and design documentation.

Perform risk assessments and develop safety functions in accordance with ISO 13849-1 and applicable industry standards.

Evaluate hardware obsolescence and lead replacement strategies for…