Technical Lead, Software Development (High Performance Computing)

Overview

KLA is a global leader in diversified electronics for the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. Virtually every electronic device in the world is produced using our technologies. No laptop, smartphone, wearable device, voice-controlled gadget, flexible screen, VR device or smart car would have made it into your hands without us. KLA invents systems and solutions for the manufacturing of wafers and reticles, integrated circuits, packaging, printed circuit boards and flat panel displays. The innovative ideas and devices that are advancing humanity all begin with inspiration, research and development. KLA focuses more than average on innovation and we invest 15% of sales back into R&D. Our expert teams of physicists, engineers, data scientists and problem-solvers work together with the world’s leading technology providers to accelerate the delivery of tomorrow’s electronic devices. Life here is exciting and our teams thrive on tackling really hard problems. There is never a dull moment with us.

Group/Division

With over 40 years of semiconductor process control experience, chipmakers around the globe rely on KLA to ensure that their fabs ramp next-generation devices to volume production quickly and cost-effectively. Enabling the movement towards advanced chip design, KLA's Global Products Group (GPG), which is responsible for creating all of KLA’s metrology and inspection products, is looking for the best and the brightest research scientist, software engineers, application development engineers, and senior product technology process engineers. First to deliver the best imaging and classification data for every defect or point on any layer at any time. EBeam’s mission encapsulates its role as the “eyes” of KLA’s product line, providing timely information on defects and critical locations on the wafer at the highest spatial resolution possible. Customers use EBeam products alongside KLA patterned and bare wafer inspectors to quickly understand the nature of defects and other imperfections on product wafers and take action to correct the manufacturing process.

Job Description/Preferred Qualifications

About the Company

KLA is a global leader in yield management and process control solutions for the semiconductor industry. With decades of innovation, KLA enables the world’s top chipmakers to accelerate next‑generation device manufacturing with precision and efficiency. Our software teams build advanced platforms powering electron-beam inspection systems—solving complex physics and data‑intensive challenges using high-performance, scalable computing.

Role Overview

This role focuses on designing, developing, and optimizing distributed, high-throughput software systems operating on advanced HPC infrastructure. The position requires strong technical ownership, hands-on Linux C++ development skills, deep performance engineering experience, and collaboration across multidisciplinary teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and develop high-performance distributed software systems for large-scale HPC environments.
• Build and optimize Linux C/C++ components for compute-intensive and timing-critical workloads.
• Implement parallel/distributed computing frameworks using MPI, OpenMP, UCX, or similar technologies.
• Containerize and orchestrate compute workloads using Docker/Singularity with Kubernetes or SLURM.
• Profile, debug, and tune system performance using VTune, Nsight, perf, gdb, and related tools.
• Drive architectural discussions, code quality, and engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with algorithms, hardware, and systems teams to deliver tightly integrated solutions.
• Mentor team members in HPC concepts, system debugging, and performance optimization.
  
  
  

• Strong hands-on expertise in C/C++ development on Linux, including systems-level programming.
• Proven experience building or optimizing HPC or distributed computing systems.
• Solid understanding of concurrency, multi-threading, networking, IPC, and Linux OS internals.
• Experience with profiling/debugging tools such as VTune, Nsight, perf, ftrace, gdb.
• Experience with Docker/Singularity and orchestration frameworks (Kubernetes, SLURM).
• Knowledge of CPU/GPU architectures, high-bandwidth interconnects, and distributed storage systems.
  
  
  

• Experience using or optimizing MPI, OpenMP, UCX, SHMEM, or similar parallel programming models.
• Exposure to GPU compute frameworks (CUDA/RoC) or GPU-aware communication libraries.
• Familiarity with deep learning or ML pipeline workflows.
• Proficiency in Python and Bash scripting.
• Background in distributed microservices, observability tools, or large-scale system deployments.
  
  
  

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree.
• Typically 6+ years of hands-on experience in HPC, Linux systems programming, or distributed systems development.
  
  
  

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree.
• Typically 6+ years of hands-on experience in HPC, Linux systems programming, or distributed systems development.
  
  
  

Be aware of potentially fraudulent job postings or suspicious recruiting activity by persons that are currently posing as KLA employees. KLA never asks for any financial compensation to be considered for an interview, to become an employee, or for equipment. Further, KLA does not work with any recruiters or third parties who charge such fees either directly or on behalf of KLA. Please ensure that you have searched KLA’s Careers website for legitimate job postings. KLA follows a recruiting process that involves multiple interviews in person or on video conferencing with our hiring managers. If you are concerned that a communication, an interview, an offer of employment, or that an employee is not legitimate, please send an email to talent.acquisition@kla.com to confirm the person you are communicating with is an employee. We take your privacy very seriously and confidentially handle your information.