The IC Technology Chief of Staff provides strategic leadership for Technology Development governance, portfolio management, financial planning, resource allocation, and selected technology-development programs.
The role is responsible for developing, implementing, and continuously improving the governance framework used to manage semiconductor technology-development activities from technology roadmap creation and early pathfinding through Proof of Concept (POC), Technology Development and Approval (TD&A), Qualification, Manufacturing Release, and Ramp.
The position serves as a central integration point across Technology Development, IP Development, New Product Development (NPD), Manufacturing, Reliability, Quality, Finance, and Business Units to ensure alignment of development objectives, organizational priorities, investment plans, schedules, resource allocations, manufacturing readiness, and business commitments.
The CoS develops governance processes, operating models, approval structures, metrics, and decision frameworks that enable effective execution of technology-development investments. The role aligns technology strategy, Technology Maturity, development investments, portfolio priorities, business objectives, and executive decision processes.
The position also leads Technology Development budgeting, forecasting, allocation, capacity planning, and investment management in partnership with Finance and technology leadership. Success requires semiconductor technical depth, governance expertise, financial acumen, strategic planning capability, executive communication skills, and the ability to influence organizational direction without direct reporting authority.
In addition to governance and organizational leadership responsibilities, the CoS leads selected technology-development programs and strategic initiatives requiring broad technical coordination and executive engagement.
Key Functions
- Technology Development Governance and Organizational Leadership
- Technology Development Financial Planning, Budgeting, and Resource Allocation
- Strategic Program Leadership
- Technology Roadmaps and Strategic Planning
- Executive Operations, Metrics, and Organizational Effectiveness
Technology Development Governance and Organizational Leadership
- Lead development, deployment, and continuous improvement of the Technology Development governance framework.
- Partner with Technology Development, IP Development, NPD, Manufacturing, Reliability, Quality, Finance, and Business Units to establish governance processes, approval structures, operating practices, deliverables, and decision gates.
- Define governance requirements, ownership models, approval authorities, evidence requirements, document-control expectations, and controlled-data-management practices.
- Establish and maintain alignment among development, product, manufacturing, quality, reliability, and financial-planning processes.
- Develop governance standards, templates, workflows, and operating models that improve execution effectiveness, increase accountability, reduce administrative burden, and accelerate milestone approvals.
- Ensure governance processes provide clear requirements, ownership, review expectations, approval criteria, and supporting evidence for development decisions.
- Drive continuous improvement initiatives that simplify execution, eliminate duplicated documentation, improve data quality, and strengthen organizational effectiveness.
- Facilitate resolution of ownership conflicts, approval ambiguity, process inconsistencies, and cross-functional execution barriers.
- Serve as a principal advisor to leadership on governance strategy, process improvement, organizational effectiveness, and technology-development execution.
Technology Development Financial Planning, Budgeting, and Resource Allocation
- Provide Technology Development budgeting, forecasting, allocation, and investment-planning processes in partnership with Finance and technology leadership.
- Develop and maintain annual operating plans, quarterly forecasts, long-range plans, and technology-development investment projections.
- Maintain a strong understanding of corporate financial systems, accounting practices, allocation methodologies, budgeting processes, capital-planning requirements, accrual processes, cost tracking, and financial-reporting practices.
- Coordinate technology-development resource allocations across engineering organizations, including FTEs, wafers, masks, capital equipment, software, reliability resources, characterization resources, qualification capacity, and external development services.
- Ensure alignment between development budgets, allocation forecasts, development schedules,
- Monitor forecast-versus-actual spending and identify financial risks, funding gaps, resource constraints, and investment opportunities.
- Support development of business cases, investment proposals, staffing requests, capital authorizations, and strategic funding recommendations.
- Provide leadership with visibility into development costs, organizational capacity, investment effectiveness, funding requirements, and long-range resource needs.
Strategic Program Leadership
- Provide portfolio-level coordination, visibility, and decision support across multiple technology-development programs.
- Lead selected technology-development programs from innovation and pathfinding through Project Initiation, Pre-Plan/POC, Plan, Feasibility, Optimization, Qualification, Manufacturing Release, and Ramp.
- Define program objectives, technical scope, success criteria, schedules, assumptions, learning plans, deliverables, resources, dependencies, and decision gates.
- Develop and maintain integrated schedules spanning technology development, design IP, masks, wafers, packaging, reliability, qualification, product development, manufacturing readiness, and customer commitments.
- Establish visibility to critical-path activities and organizational dependencies affecting Technology Maturity, product schedules, manufacturing readiness, or business commitments.
- Coordinate Engineering Technology Owners (ETOs), discipline leads, COE leaders, program managers, manufacturing organizations, and extended development teams.
- Ensure Technology Maturity assessments are based on objective technical evidence, documented gaps, approved waivers, and defined closure plans.
- Ensure approved Technology Maturity changes are reflected in applicable databases and controlled program records.
- Integrate qualification, reliability, manufacturing-release, process-freeze, and approval requirements into development plans and schedules.
- Work closely with Reliability, Quality, Manufacturing, Product Engineering, and technical leaders to verify readiness and supporting evidence.
- Incorporate approval conditions, restrictions, risks, waivers, and actions into program schedules, controlled records, and executive reporting.
- Lead recovery planning and facilitate resolution of technical, resource, schedule, manufacturing, quality, financial, and business issues.
- Drive closure of actions and decisions resulting from milestone reviews, stakeholder reviews, Technology Maturity reviews, approval reviews, portfolio reviews, and executive reviews.
- Maintain portfolio-level visibility of technology readiness, schedule performance, investment requirements, major dependencies, development risks, and business commitments.
- Escalate unresolved issues affecting Technology Maturity, qualification, manufacturing release, product timing, customer commitments, or business objectives.
Technology Roadmaps and Strategic Planning
- Support development of technology roadmaps that align technology investments with product strategy, customer requirements, manufacturing capability, and business objectives.
- Identify emerging technology opportunities, capability gaps, competitive developments, and investment priorities.
- Lead pathfinding and POC activities to evaluate technical feasibility, business value, development risk, resource requirements, investment needs, and Technology Maturity progression.
- Transition successful concepts into formal development programs with approved scope, resources, schedules, governance structures, and funding commitments.
- Provide technology-readiness, timing, resource, capacity, and investment inputs supporting annual strategic-planning and long-range business-planning activities.
Executive Operations, Metrics, and Organizational Effectiveness
- Prepare executive reviews, portfolio reviews, roadmap updates, investment reviews, resource-allocation reviews, and operational assessments.
- Develop concise executive communications summarizing portfolio health, technology readiness, resource requirements, investment status, organizational risks, and recommended actions.
- Establish metrics, dashboards, and reporting systems that provide visibility into schedule performance, milestone readiness, resource utilization, budget performance, Technology Maturity progression, portfolio health, and organizational effectiveness.
- Develop executive reporting that integrates technology readiness, resource utilization, development spending, capital investments, program status, and organizational capacity.
- Translate complex technical, operational, organizational, and financial information into actionable recommendations for executive decision making.
- Identify organizational gaps, conflicting priorities, resource constraints, and execution risks and facilitate timely resolution.
- Apply automation, analytics, workflow digitization, and AI-enabled tools to improve governance, reporting, financial planning, portfolio visibility, and decision support.
- Ensure decisions, actions, risks, waivers, approval conditions, and commitments remain visible, traceable, and aligned across governance systems.
- Engineering degree in a semiconductor-related technical discipline.
- Semiconductor experience in one or more of the areas: technology development, process engineering, device engineering, reliability, manufacturing, packaging, IP development, or product development.
- Demonstrated experience developing governance processes, operating models, management systems, or organizational frameworks for engineering or technology-development organizations.
- Demonstrated success leading complex cross-functional semiconductor technology-development programs.
- Strong understanding of semiconductor-development lifecycles, Technology Maturity, qualification, manufacturing transfer, and product-release processes.
- Strong understanding of corporate financial systems, budgeting processes, allocation methodologies, capital-planning practices, financial forecasting, project accounting, and technology-development investments.
- Experience working directly with Finance organizations to manage development budgets, allocations, forecasts, capital planning, and executive financial reviews.
- Ability to integrate technical, operational, organizational, business, manufacturing, and financial considerations into executive decision-making processes.
- Experience developing executive presentations, management reviews, investment analyses, portfolio assessments, and strategic recommendations.
- Strong executive communication, facilitation, conflict-resolution, negotiation, and influencing skills.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with power semiconductors, high-voltage, isolation, BCD, mixed-signal, SiC, GaN, or related technologies.
- Experience serving as a technology program manager, Engineering Technology Owner (ETO), process integration engineer, device engineer, reliability leader, or technical project leader.
- Working knowledge of Technology Development governance, Technology Maturity, approval processes, manufacturing readiness, and portfolio-management practices.
- Experience with AGILE PLM, Jira, SharePoint, Microsoft Project, Power BI, Excel, and executive-reporting tools.
- Experience managing semiconductor-development budgets, allocation planning, wafer spending, mask spending, capital investments, and development-resource forecasting.
- Experience supporting annual operating plans, strategic planning, investment planning, and portfolio-management activities.
- Experience in applying analytics, automation, and AI-enabled tools to technology-development operations and governance.
Leadership Expectations
The Technology Chief of Staff:
- Serves as a strategic integrator across Technology Development, IP Development, NPD, Manufacturing, Finance, and Business Units.
- Provides leadership visibility into portfolio performance, technology readiness, organizational capacity, budget performance, investment effectiveness, and execution risks.
- Drives alignment among technology strategies, development priorities, business objectives, financial plans, resource allocations, and executive actions.
- Leads development of governance systems, operating processes, and management frameworks that improve organizational effectiveness.
- Influences organizational direction through governance leadership, financial insight, strategic planning, portfolio analysis, and semiconductor expertise.
- Serves as a trusted advisor to technology leadership on governance, budgeting, resource allocation, investment planning, portfolio management, and technology-development execution.
Provides leadership through technical credibility, business understanding, analytical rigor, and organizational influence rather than formal authority