Senior Application Engineer – Process Integration Expert

Nearfield Instruments (NFI) is a fast-growing scale-up high-tech company. We design, develop, integrate, market and service advanced metrology machines. Our machines enable our customers - the world’s leading chipmakers – to increase the production yields, and thus, functionality of their microchips, which in turn leads to smaller, more powerful consumer electronics.

Founded in 2016, we bring together the most creative minds (approx. 380 employees) in science and technology and develop a one-of-a-kind, revolutionary high throughput Scanning Probe Microscopy system.

About the job

We are seeking a Process Integration Expert with broad and deep expertise in CMP, advanced packaging, and hybrid bonding. You will bring a strong process background to guide the development of novel metrology solutions that address the critical challenges of heterogeneous integration and 3D device scaling. Your insights will directly shape tools that ensure reliability, precision, and yield for the most advanced nodes in both logic and memory and you will be part of Technical Marketing team.

What will you be doing?

• Apply deep process expertise in CMP, packaging, and bonding to define requirements for advanced metrology solutions.

• Translate challenges such as planarization (CMP), interconnect scaling (packaging), and bonding interface quality (hybrid bonding) into measurable metrology targets.

• Collaborate with system architects, AFM/optical experts, and computational scientists to design metrology approaches that tackle high-aspect ratio structures, alignment, dishing/erosion, voids, warpage, and interface defectivity.

• Work closely with leading semiconductor fabs and packaging partners to validate metrology concepts in real-world manufacturing.

• Act as the in-house process integration expert, bridging the gap between semiconductor manufacturing processes and next-generation metrology.

What do we require from you?

• PhD or MSc in Materials Science, Physics, Mechanical/Electrical/Chemical Engineering, or related field.

• Proven expertise in at least two of the following areas (ideally all three):

  • CMP (Chemical Mechanical Polishing) – planarization, defectivity, dishing, erosion.

  • Advanced Packaging – 2.5D/3D integration, chiplets, interposers, TSVs, reliability.

  • Hybrid Bonding – wafer-to-wafer and die-to-wafer bonding, overlay, bonding interface quality.

• 8+ years of relevant R&D or industry experience in preferably manufacturing side, or alternatively from the equipment side.

• Strong ability to translate process knowledge into metrology and process control requirements.

• Collaborative mindset and ability to operate across disciplines in a dynamic scale-up environment.