Forward Deployed Engineer

Company 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

The KLA Services team headquartered in Milpitas, CA is our service organization that consists of Service Sales and Marketing, Spares Supply Chain management, Field Operations, Engineering, Product Training, and Technical Support. The KLA Services organization partners with our field teams and customers in all business sectors to maintain the high performance and productivity of our products through a flexible portfolio of services. Our comprehensive services include: proactive management of tools to identify and improve performance; expertise in optics, image processing and motion control with worldwide service engineers, 24/7 technical support teams and knowledge management systems; and an extensive parts network to ensure worldwide availability of parts.

Job Description/Preferred Qualifications

This role sits at the intersection of KLA's most advanced AI work and the rest of the company. Based in Ann Arbor, you are the bridge between what our AI engineering team builds and what KLA's business units need — identifying which capabilities are ready to deploy and building the infrastructure that every future AI deployment stands on. You own the internal AI platform that raises the capability floor across the organization. If you want to build foundational AI infrastructure at a company where the data is proprietary, the problems are hard, and the impact is measurable — this is the role.
This role sits at the intersection of KLA's most advanced AI work and the rest of the company. Based in Ann Arbor, you are the bridge between what our AI engineering team builds and what KLA's business units need — identifying which capabilities are ready to deploy and building the infrastructure that every future AI deployment stands on. You own the internal AI platform that raises the capability floor across the organization.

Key Responsibilities:

• Build and enhance AI products and tools for the business, owning product quality and reliability end to end
• Deploy AI capabilities into KLA's teams, serving as the bridge between R&D and production use
• Own the internal AI infrastructure — the foundational layer that removes friction, compounds organizational learning, and scales without adding headcount
• Architect and maintain reusable infrastructure: agent scaffolding, eval frameworks, and integration patterns
• Design and build persistent context and memory systems that make AI environments personalized and progressively more useful over time
• Build skill and plugin distribution systems that let one person's breakthrough become everyone's baseline
• Design and operate on-prem inference infrastructure for deployments where data cannot leave the network
• Fine-tune or adapt foundation models on proprietary data where it creates meaningful capability uplift
• Build CI/CD pipelines for agents: testing, evaluation, versioning, and rollback
• Set technical standards and mentor junior engineers; lead design reviews and define golden paths for development
• Track the AI frontier at a deep technical level — not just what shipped but how it works and what it changes about what's possible

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field; Master's preferred
• 3+ years of experience building and operating ML/AI systems in production, including ownership of production-grade infrastructure
• Strong proficiency in Python and experience with ML frameworks and model fine-tuning techniques
• Hands-on experience with inference optimization and model serving infrastructure, including on-prem deployment patterns
• Experience building internal tools, platform infrastructure, or developer experience layers that other engineers or non-technical users depend on
• Experience designing plugin architectures, marketplace systems, or extensible platform components that scale adoption
• Experience building persistent memory, context management, or personalization systems for AI products
• Working knowledge of CI/CD, containerization, orchestration, and Infrastructure-as-Code
• Experience designing evaluation harnesses and automated testing for AI systems
• Strong understanding of data governance and security — comfortable operating within tiered data handling policies
• Owns outcomes, not tasks — you identify what needs to happen and drive it without being managed
• Technical leadership experience: mentoring engineers, leading design reviews, setting standards
• Prior experience in semiconductor, manufacturing, or scientific/industrial ML is a plus

Minimum Qualifications

• Doctorate (Academic) Degree and 0 years related work experience; Master's Level Degree and related work experience of 3 years; Bachelor's Level Degree and related work experience of 5 years

Base Pay Range: $111,900.00 - $190,200.00 Annually

Primary Location: USA-MI-Ann Arbor-KLA

KLA’s total rewards package for employees may also include participation in performance incentive programs and eligibility for additional benefits including but not limited to: medical, dental, vision, life, and other voluntary benefits, 401(K) including company matching, employee stock purchase program (ESPP), student debt assistance, tuition reimbursement program, development and career growth opportunities and programs, financial planning benefits, wellness benefits including an employee assistance program (EAP), paid time off and paid company holidays, and family care and bonding leave.

Interns are eligible for some of the benefits listed. Our pay ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed reflects the pay for this position in the primary location identified in this posting. Actual pay depends on several factors, including state minimum pay wage rates, location, job-related skills, experience, and relevant education level or training. We are committed to complying with all applicable federal and state minimum wage requirements where applicable. If applicable, your recruiter can share more about the specific pay range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

KLA is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We will ensure that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us at [email protected] or at +1-408-352-2808 to request accommodation.

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 [email protected] to confirm the person you are communicating with is an employee. We take your privacy very seriously and confidentially handle your information.