Senior Lead Process & Materials Engineer - Electronics Assembly Chemistries

Date: Oct 22, 2026

The Senior Lead Engineer, Manufacturing Equipment is responsible for identifying, selecting, evaluating, and qualifying new chemistriesused in electronic assembly processes. This includes solder pastes, fluxes, underfills, adhesives, encapsulants, TIMs, conformal coatings, cleaning chemistries, and any material that directly affects reliability, manufacturability, or long-term performance. The role bridgesanalytical chemistry, materials science, process engineering, reliability engineering, and supplier management to ensure robust introduction of new materials into production.

The role includes designing, developing, deploying, executing and optimizing test plans to assess product and process quality and reliability using the new chemistries.

• Lead the scouting, down-selection, and technical evaluation of new chemistries for SMT, die attach, underfill, TIM application, encapsulation, and cleaning processes.
• Define material performance requirements, including rheology, cure kinetics, thermal stability, adhesion, wetting, residue behavior, and compatibility with other chemistries used in the process, substrates and finishes.
• Conduct structured DOE-based evaluations to characterize material behavior under realistic process windows.

Material Qualification & Reliability

• Own the full qualification lifecycle: initial screening → process integration → reliability testing → production release.
• Develop qualification test plans covering thermal cycling, humidity, CAF, electromigration (SIR), mechanical shock, reflow robustness, and chemical compatibility.
• Overall project management and project lead for laboratory investigations
• Analyze failure modes using microscopy, spectroscopy, mechanical testing, and cross-sectioning to determine root cause and material suitability.
• Collaborate with reliability engineering to define acceptance criteria and long-term performance expectations.

Process Integration & Manufacturing Support

• Translate material properties into robust, controlled manufacturing processes(print parameters, dispense profiles, cure profiles, reflow profiles, cleaning cycles).
• Establish process windows, control limits, and monitoring strategies for new chemistries.
• Partner with factory process engineering to validate manufacturability at scale and ensure smooth ramp-to-production.

Supplier & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work directly with material suppliers to understand formulations, stability, shelf life, and process sensitivities.
• Work with commodity management to drive supplier audits, technical reviews, and corrective actions when material performance deviates.
• Collaborate with design engineering, reliability, quality, and operations to ensure chemistry choices align with product requirements and cost targets.

Documentation & Standards

• Prepare reports identifying samples, explaining testing methods, documenting findings, and outlining conclusions of the testing and analyses.
• Create and maintain material specifications, qualification reports, PFMEAs, control plans, and process documentation.
• Ensure compliance with environmental and regulatory requirements (RoHS, REACH, halogen-free, VOC limits).
• Maintain a materials roadmap aligned with future product and technology needs.
• Knowledge of electrochemistry and its application to corrosion of electronic assemblies
• Strong understanding of soldering, adhesives, polymers, surface finishes, and reliability mechanisms.
• Hands-on experience with DOE, SPC, PFMEA, and structured problem-solving (8D, DMAIC).
• Familiarity with and/or direct hands on experience with analytical tools such as DSC, TGA, DMA, rheometry, FTIR, XRF, SEM/EDS, SIR and mechanical…