Vice President of Engineering
Advantest Test Solutions, Inc. (ATS) is a global leader in massively parallel System Level Test (SLT), burn-in, and semiconductor/module test systems supporting mission-critical manufacturing operations for leading semiconductor companies worldwide.
ATS is seeking a Vice President of Engineering to serve as the senior executive accountable for engineering execution, predictability, and operational excellence across the company’s global product portfolio. This role is responsible not only for engineering delivery, but for ensuring that engineering outcomes consistently meet business, customer, and manufacturing commitments.
The Vice President of Engineering operates as a core member of the company’s senior leadership team, translating business objectives into executable engineering plans, establishing scalable operating mechanisms, and holding the organization accountable for results. The Vice President of Engineering has end-to-end ownership of engineering execution across all ATS product lines, geographies, and disciplines. This leader ensures that engineering commitments are credible, visible, and reliably delivered, and that risks are identified early and managed decisively. This role leads through senior engineering managers and directors, setting expectations, operating cadence, and decision frameworks and day-to-day task execution.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities:
- Own company-wide engineering delivery commitments across all product lines, including schedules, milestones, cost targets, quality objectives, and manufacturing readiness.
- Serve as the single point of accountability for engineering execution performance to the executive team.
- Ensure engineering priorities are aligned with business strategy, customer commitments, and capacity realities.
- Establish and enforce a disciplined, scalable engineering operating model covering:
- Program execution and release governance
- Resource planning and capacity management
- Risk identification, escalation, and mitigation
- Cross-functional decision-making and accountability
- Drive consistent execution standards across global engineering teams to ensure predictable outcomes.
- Implement metrics and reviews that provide early visibility into execution health and enable proactive intervention.
- Partner with Operations, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality, and Field organizations to ensure seamless transition from development to production.
- Ensure engineering delivers complete, production-ready solutions including BOM readiness, validation, qualification, and manufacturing release.
- Resolve cross-functional conflicts decisively, balancing technical, schedule, and business tradeoffs.
- Build, develop, and retain a high-performing global engineering leadership team.
- Set clear expectations for accountability, ownership, and results at every leadership level.
- Foster a culture of execution discipline, transparency, and continuous improvement.
- Represent engineering at an executive level with key customers and partners.
- Support resolution of high-impact customer issues where engineering credibility and leadership presence are required.
- Collaborate with overseas suppliers and subcontractors to ensure execution standards and delivery expectations are met.
- Drive continuous improvement in engineering efficiency, quality, and cycle time.
- Ensure engineering processes and organizational structures scale effectively with business growth and product complexity.
- Champion operational rigor while enabling innovation and technical excellence.
- All other duties as assigned.
Requirements, Education & Skills:
- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline (Master’s degree preferred).
- 15+ years of engineering experience, including significant senior leadership experience leading managers of managers.
- Proven track record of enterprise-scale engineering execution in semiconductor capital equipment or complex hardware/software environments.
- Demonstrated success delivering multiple products into manufacturing with consistent schedule and quality performance.
- Strong understanding of product development, validation, and manufacturing release processes across multiple engineering disciplines.
- Experience establishing execution frameworks, operating cadences, and accountability mechanisms in global organizations.
- Executive-level communication skills with the ability to clearly articulate risks, tradeoffs, and outcomes to senior leadership and customers.
- Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, high-accountability environment with competing priorities.
- Onsite position in our Lake Forest, CA office.
Top Skills
What We Do
For over a half-century, Advantest has been designing innovative electronic measuring equipment and semiconductor test systems essential to the development and manufacture of advanced computer and telecommunications products. On April 1, 2012, Advantest completed its integration of Verigy Ltd.
Additional Information about Advantest can be found at www.advantest.com.
