Head of Quality and Industrialization

Are you a seasoned quality and industrialization leader who has taken semiconductor processes from the lab to qualified, high-yield volume production, and built the quality organization around them? At Lightium, we are building next-generation photonic integrated circuits (PICs) based on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN), and we are looking for a Head of Quality and Industrialization to take our technology from development to a qualified, certified, and multi-sourced production platform.

We seek a senior Head of Quality and Industrialization, with at least 10 years of experience in quality and industrialization in the semiconductor industry, to own the path from process development to qualified volume production. You will build our first quality management system and take the company to ISO 9001 certification by end-2027, industrialize our TFLN processes and qualify our 200 mm line for production, run our network of external fabs, foundries, and back-end subcontractors, and own yield, reliability, and product qualification for markets ranging from datacenter and telecom to space and defense.

As part of the Operations team, you will bring the experience, the methods, and the mindset that turn a fast-moving startup into a reliable, audit-ready supplier as we scale from pilot to volume production.

• Design and build our first QMS (quality strategy, process architecture, procedures, work instructions, and document and record control), sized for a semiconductor startup.
• Own the internal and external audit program, the management review cycle, and the corrective and preventive action loop.
• Bring the company to ISO 9001 compliance by mid-2027, with certification targeted by end-2027.

• Industrialize our TFLN photonic processes from development to repeatable production: NPI, process qualification, transfer packages, and production readiness gates.
• Lead the qualification of Lightium’s 200 mm TFLN line for production.
• Own process FMEAs, control plans, and process change control, both internally and at our suppliers.
• Qualify new processes, tools, and process changes, and define capability acceptance criteria (Cpk / Ppk).
• Design and build the strategy for Telcordia and any other qualification required to industrialize our platform for its different markets (telecom, datacenter, space, defense, and others).

• Be the point of contact for our external fabs, foundries, and back-end subcontractors (front-end, wafer-level packaging, assembly, and test), and own the relationship across technical, operational, and quality topics.
• Run foundry governance: qualification and approval, quality agreements and specifications, audits, scorecards, supplier corrective action requests, PCN handling, and continuous improvement plans.
• Drive foundry engineering topics end-to-end: scrap and compensation, delivery commitments, split lots, and the integration of Lightium’s requirements into the partner’s systems.
• Identify and qualify new fabs to run our TFLN process, including site visits as well as technical, commercial, and legal negotiations, to bring on one additional fab in Asia and one in Europe and drive Lightium’s dual-sourcing strategy.
• Contribute to building the production strategy for our next-generation manufacturing.

• Lead the test and quality control strategy: what to test, how to test, how many to test, and how to analyze the data.
• Own yield: wafer- and die-level yield analysis, defect signature identification, loss Paretos, and yield improvement roadmaps together with engineering.
• Be the champion of SPC across the…