Principal Quality Assurance Engineer

Renesas Electronics is looking for a Principal Quality Engineer to support highly demanding strategic customers by driving disciplined technical quality execution across advanced semiconductor technologies. This role serves as a trusted customer-facing quality expert, leading complex escalations, translating customer expectations into internal execution plans, and strengthening customer confidence through clear communication, data-driven analysis, and measurable quality improvement.

The Principal Quality Engineer will operate at both technical and customer-engagement levels, partnering with internal stakeholders and customer teams to manage high-visibility quality concerns, anticipate customer risk, drive rapid containment and corrective action, and ensure consistent executive-level communication without direct people-management responsibility.

• Act as the technical quality interface for highly demanding strategic customers, leading quality engagements, technical reviews, executive updates, and complex escalations.
• Own customer quality performance analysis, including PPM, RMA, Failure Analysis Requests, audits, scorecards, recurring quality trends, and customer-specific improvement plans.
• Prepare and present concise, data-backed technical quality updates for escalation meetings and internal leadership reviews.
• Translate customer requirements, concerns, and quality expectations into actionable internal priorities with clear owners, timing, risks, and closure criteria.

• Provide technical leadership, coaching, and guidance to cross-functional partners on customer quality expectations and structured problem solving.
• Coordinate priorities across customers, products, and escalations to ensure timely and effective quality execution.
• Develop and promote best practices for customer engagement, issue resolution, communication consistency, and quality documentation.

• Drive end-to-end resolution of complex customer quality issues, from immediate containment through root cause, corrective action, effectiveness verification, and customer closure.
• Lead urgency-driven cross-functional investigations across fab, assembly/test, R&D, product engineering, supply chain, and supplier quality using structured problem-solving methodologies.
• Manage sensitive customer escalations with disciplined communication cadence, fact-based status reporting, risk assessment, and executive-ready summaries.

• Partner with internal leadership to influence design-for-quality, process robustness, reliability strategies, and customer-specific quality improvement roadmaps.
• Use customer feedback, field data, failure analysis learnings, and quality metrics to identify systemic gaps, reduce recurrence, and improve customer perception of Renesas quality execution.
• Drive proactive risk reviews for critical customer applications, including readiness for audits, quality reviews, reliability concerns, and product change communications.

• Experience supporting demanding strategic or executive-level customers in a customer-facing technical quality role.
• Demonstrated ability to manage high-visibility customer escalations with urgency, clarity, ownership, and disciplined follow-through.
• Expertise in structured problem solving, root cause analysis, containment, corrective action, effectiveness verification, and customer communication.
• Strong knowledge of semiconductor manufacturing processes, including wafer fab, assembly, test, reliability, failure analysis, and supplier quality interactions.
• Excellent executive communication skills with the ability to present concise technical conclusions, risks, options, and recommended actions.
• Ability to influence cross-functional teams without direct authority and align global stakeholders around customer-critical deliverables.
• Available to support domestic and international business travel for customer meetings, audits, quality reviews, and escalation support.

• 10+ years of relevant experience with BSEE, or 8+ years of relevant experience with MSEE, or equivalent technical experience.
• Customer Quality, Product Engineering, Reliability Engineering, Failure Analysis, or related semiconductor quality experience supporting strategic customers, business units, and cross-functional escalation teams.

The expected annual pay range for this position is $180K-225K.

• This position is also…