Plasma Dry-Etching; ICP​/RIE & Ash Process Engineer

About our group:

At Seagate our mission is to build the world’s best data storage devices. The Advanced Transducer Development group is a global R&D organization that develops new recording head technologies to advance areal density and enable Seagate’s HDD (Hard Disk Drive) 4 year+ product roadmap. Our process team uses state-of-the-art wafer fabrication tools and cleanroom facilities to innovate and deliver leading-edge writers and read sensors.

With an emphasis on proving feasibility of new devices, processes and materials, we help build Seagate’s future time-to-market leadership. If you are excited by innovative technology development, are naturally creative, and passionate about seeing ideas come to life then this could be a perfect fit to your research and development career.

We are seeking an experienced Plasma Dry‑Etching Process Engineer with expertise in Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP), Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) and Asher Systems. In this hands‑on role, you will work with state‑of‑the‑art Plasma Dry‑etching and Plasma Ash platforms to developing robust and manufacturable processes, partnering closely with integration, device, and manufacturing teams to deliver high‑quality, production ready solutions to support our product roadmap.

This role is critical to enabling precise pattern transfer, high material selectivity, and best in class device performance to develop novel, scalable methods to integrate next generation metal and dielectric thin film structures into nanometer scale devices. You will also play a key role in collaborating with equipment vendors and academic partners to identify new opportunities and advanced integration techniques.

These efforts will help shape Seagate’s future process technologies and evolve our manufacturing lines to accelerate delivery of next generation HDD products. This is a full‑time, on‑site position, working 39 hours per week, Monday to Friday.

• Develop, characterize, and optimize RIE, ICP and plasma ash processes for a wide range of applications.
• Design and tune process recipes to achieve target etch rates, profiles, uniformity, critical dimension control, and material selectivity.
• Support pattern transfer challenges for advanced device architectures at the nanoscale.
• Process owner for multiple ICP, RIE and Plasma Ash tools to ensure process stability and repeatability.
• Diagnose and resolve process excursions and hardware‑related issues in collaboration with equipment suppliers and maintenance teams.
• Support tool qualification, acceptance testing, and process transfers.
• Utilize metrology and characterization techniques such as SEM, AFM, ellipsometry, and profilometry to characterize patterned features.
• Maintain thorough documentation of processes, results, and best practices.
• Partner with lithography, deposition, integration, and device engineering teams to ensure seamless integration of etch and ash steps into the overall fabrication flow.
• Participate in technology transfers to the product development engineering team.
• Manage and analyse datasets to correlate experimental results with device performance and reliability.
• Contribute to Seagate’s IP portfolio in the form of invention disclosures, patents, trade secrets, peer‑reviewed journal articles, and/or white papers.

• You are self‑motivated, intellectually curious, able to work independently and have a strong attention to detail.
• You are an honest and respectful team player, capable of working in strong partnership with a diverse global group of engineers and technicians.
• You are a well‑organized multitasker, able to balance day‑to‑day wafer processing needs with longer‑term development work.
• You maintain thorough documentation of results and can clearly present and discuss them with other staff members in engineering and management forums.
• You have a track record of innovation and regularly use outside sources (journals, patents, university projects and conferences) to inspire new ideas and directions.
• You are able and eager to work in a mix of clean room and laboratory environments.

• PhD or Master’s degree in Materials Science,…