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.
What You'll Do
In this role, you will play a key part in advancing business priorities by delivering high-impact work across your area of expertise.
Graduate Process Engineer
You’ll be joining one of our process and applications teams covering either our CVD, PVD, or Etch products, providing process support and solutions from our office in Newport as well as being given opportunity for you to travel supporting customers in the field, involving travel throughout Europe, Asia, and USA.
This role represents an excellent opportunity for scientists or engineers who are looking to establish a career in a fast-growing, award-winning, global semiconductor company with a clearly defined career development path.
Following the company's extensive onboarding and introduction program, you will join our Graduate Development program which includes technical classroom training, soft-skills training, team building, corporate responsibility activities and finally placement across all of our process teams. It is not required for you to already have the skills and knowledge to perform the role, full on the job training will be provided through our graduate development scheme
Your day-to-day responsibilities will include:
- Developing and demonstrating our processes to meet the agreed specifications
- Contributing constructively to the work of our project teams in developing new products that meet the requirements of our global customer for their next generation designs.
- Assessing results using our fully equipped analytical laboratory and software tools including Excel etc
- Problem solving, trouble shooting and investigating faults on process solutions both in-house and in the field
- Providing regular updates to the product marketing and process teams on progress of sample and demonstration work, where required summarising results in a written report or presentation.
- Establishing both effective customer and team relationships particularly for clear communication of results and ideas
- Planning your work and delivering plans in a safe, sensible and timely manner
- Research into published work relevant to our process development
- Writing technical reports for patent applications and writing technical papers for publication at conferences, seminars etc.
- This position will give an opportunity for some international travel and working some shift patterns to fully utilise our innovative development cleanroom.
KLA is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. Whilst no experience is necessary, in your application and through assessment you’ll show us you:
- Have a passion for learning and development, continuously seeking for new knowledge and learning opportunities.
- Can think logically to provide customer solutions with a good attention to detail and foresight and ability to collect, filter and analyse data to build solutions for complex technological problems
- Has the ability to think creatively of novel but practical solutions to customer problems
- Is able to demonstrate strong communication skills – You’ll enjoy establishing and maintaining good working relationships with both customers and colleagues.
Your qualifications:
- Minimum Bachelor’s Degree (2:1) in Physics, Chemistry or Material Science.
- Applicants with a Masters or prior experience of studies within the semiconductor industry would be desirable but certainly not a must.
- A good acquaintance with SW tools (MS office, MATLAB) would be advantageous.
Minimum Qualifications
BSc / BEng
About KLA
We provide advanced inspection tools, metrology systems, process solutions, and computational analytics that make electronics possible, tackling complex challenges. From electron and photon optics to machine learning and data analytics, we seek perfection at the most fundamental level of matter in the universe. If you want to make electronics that push industries forward and make the world a better place, join us.
Use of AI Statement
At KLA, our interviews seek to understand your individual skills, problem-solving approach and authentic thinking. To ensure a fair and consistent evaluation, the use of AI, recording tools or other technologies to generate, suggest or provide responses during interviews—whether virtual or in person—is not permitted unless explicitly approved in advance as part of a reasonable accommodation or invited by the interviewer. Use of these tools may interfere with our ability to evaluate your individual qualifications and affect your candidacy. KLA is committed to advancing innovation through responsible AI, and we value candidates who share this mindset.
We offer a competitive, family friendly total rewards package. We design our programs to reflect our commitment to an inclusive environment, while ensuring we provide benefits that meet the diverse needs of our employees.
KLA is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.
Skills Required
- Minimum Bachelor's degree, BSc, or BEng with a 2:1 classification in Physics, Chemistry, or Materials Science
- Strong communication, logical problem-solving, attention to detail, and ability to analyze data
- Passion for learning and continuous professional development
- Ability to develop practical solutions to complex customer and technology problems
- Master's degree or prior semiconductor industry study experience
- Familiarity with Microsoft Office and MATLAB
KLA Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about KLA and has not been reviewed or approved by KLA.
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Retirement Support — U.S. programs include a formulaic 401(k) employer match with clearly described plan designs in company materials. Consistent plan structure and employer matching signal strong support for long‑term savings.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — A broad base of employees is eligible for RSUs and can participate in an ESPP, extending ownership beyond executives. Company materials position equity as a core component of total compensation.
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Strong & Reliable Incentives — A quarterly profit‑sharing program and performance bonuses are outlined in filings, providing regular variable pay opportunities. These incentives complement base pay and equity to lift overall earnings in strong periods.
KLA Insights
What We Do
KLA develops industry-leading equipment and services that enable innovation throughout the electronics industry. We provide advanced process control and process-enabling solutions for manufacturing wafers and reticles. In close collaboration with leading customers across the globe, our expert teams of physicists, engineers, data scientists and problem-solvers design solutions that move the world forward.
