Senior HPC Software & Systems Architect

To make electronics, you need chips, wafers, transistors, reticles, and... To make these, you must see, test and manufacture them at scale—faster and better than ever before. That's where KLA comes in. Whether you're early in your career or an experienced professional, you'll solve complex challenges, work alongside brilliant minds and help shape the future of technology.

Group/Division

The Semiconductor Products and Customers (Semi PC) business unit designs, builds and sells KLA’s product portfolio to help chip manufacturers meet high-quality standards for technologies like AI, data centers, automotive and electronic devices. Our inspection, metrology, and analytics systems detect and monitor defects across logic and memory chips, specialty semiconductors, wafers, reticles, advanced packaging, process equipment and materials. We also develop technologies for specialty processes, IC substrates, and PCB manufacturing, including etch and deposition, component inspection, and imaging and analytics. The Measurement, Analytics and Control (MACH) division is KLA’s software powerhouse, responsible for developing high-performance software platforms that support semiconductor manufacturing. MACH delivers cutting-edge technologies in patterning analytics, modeling, and data science—empowering chipmakers to ramp next-gen devices faster and more efficiently. Our cross-functional team of research scientists, software engineers, apps engineers and process engineers are solving the industry’s most complex technical problems.

What You'll Do

In this role, you will play a key part in advancing business priorities by delivering high-impact work across your area of expertise.

In this exciting role you will design and architect next-generation High Performance Computing platforms supporting semiconductor manufacturing, AI workloads, computational lithography, metrology, inspection, and large-scale distributed data processing environments. Lead architecture decisions spanning software, hardware, networking, storage, GPU acceleration, virtualization, and cloud-integrated HPC infrastructure. Drive technology strategy, roadmap planning, and cross-functional alignment from concept through field deployment

Responsibilities will include:

HPC Platform Architecture

• Define architecture for enterprise-scale HPC clusters.
• Develop compute, network, storage, and virtualization strategies.
• Lead platform scalability planning from tens to thousands of cores.
• Define standards for GPU acceleration, distributed computing, and workload orchestration.
• Establish system performance entitlement targets and capacity planning methodologies.

Software Architecture

• Design distributed software services supporting HPC infrastructure.
• Define APIs, automation frameworks, configuration management architecture, and observability solutions.
• Lead adoption of software engineering best practices including CI/CD, testing, infrastructure-as-code, and DevOps methodologies.
• Drive modernization initiatives across Linux, container, and cloud-native platforms.

Technical Leadership

• Provide technical leadership across software, systems, manufacturing, operations, and field organizations.
• Lead architecture reviews and design reviews.
• Mentor engineers across multiple levels.
• Establish coding, deployment, and operational standards.
• Serve as escalation leader for critical system issues affecting customers and manufacturing operations.

Product Strategy

• Define HPC platform roadmap.
• Evaluate emerging technologies in:
  • GPU computing
  • AI infrastructure
  • Storage architectures
  • Virtualization
  • Cloud integration
  • High-speed networking

• Partner with product management and business leadership on long-term HPC strategy.

Required skills and experience:

Expert Linux knowledge:

• RHEL
• Rocky
• AlmaLinux
• Ubuntu
• SUSE

HPC Technologies

• SGE
• SLURM
• Kubernetes
• Distributed computing architectures
• NUMA optimization
• MPI concepts
• GPU workload scheduling

Infrastructure

• NVIDIA GPU ecosystems
• High-speed Ethernet
• RDMA
• NVMe storage
• Parallel file systems
• NAS/NFS architectures

Virtualization

• VMware
• Proxmox
• KVM
• Container technologies

Software Development

• Python
• C++
• Bash
• Git
• CI/CD pipelines
• Ansible
• Infrastructure automation frameworks

System Architecture

• Service-oriented design
• Scalability engineering
• Reliability engineering
• High availability
• Disaster recovery
• Capacity modeling
• Performance benchmarking and tuning

Minimum Qualifications

Doctorate (Academic) Degree and related work experience of 5 years; Master's Level Degree and related work experience of 8 years; Bachelor's Level Degree and related work experience of 12-15 years

About KLA

We provide advanced inspection tools, metrology systems, process solutions, and computational analytics that make electronics possible, tackling complex challenges. From electron and photon optics to machine learning and data analytics, we seek perfection at the most fundamental level of matter in the universe. If you want to make electronics that push industries forward and make the world a better place, join us.

Total Rewards

Base Pay Range: $186,200.00 - $273,067.00 Annually
Primary Location: USA-CA-Milpitas-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.

Use of AI Statement 

At KLA, our interviews seek to understand your individual skills, problem-solving approach and authentic thinking. To ensure a fair and consistent evaluation, the use of AI, recording tools or other technologies to generate, suggest or provide responses during interviews—whether virtual or in person—is not permitted unless explicitly approved in advance as part of a reasonable accommodation or invited by the interviewer. Use of these tools may interfere with our ability to evaluate your individual qualifications and affect your candidacy. KLA is committed to advancing innovation through responsible AI, and we value candidates who share this mindset.

Equal Opportunity Statement

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 talent.acquisition@kla.com or at +1-408-352-2808 to request accommodation.

For additional information, view the US Know Your Rights poster on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission website.