Director of Process Engineering

About the role

Coherent is a global leader in lasers, engineered materials and networking components. We are a vertically integrated manufacturing company that develops innovative products for diversified applications in the industrial, optical communications, military, life sciences, semiconductor equipment, and consumer markets. Coherent provides a comprehensive career development platform within an environment that challenges employees to perform at their best, while rewarding excellence and hard-work through a competitive compensation program. It's an exciting opportunity to work for a company that offers stability, longevity and growth.

Responsibilities

• Strategic Leadership: Support and execute a comprehensive process engineering strategy and technology roadmap. Establish standard operating procedures and process controls across all facilities. Oversee technical OpEx/CapEx budgets, lifecycle risks, equipment procurement, and vendor performance management. Establish consistent processes, governance, and accountability across the teams while recognizing legitimate site-specific operational requirements.
• Process Optimization & Excellence: Lead continuous improvement initiatives leveraging Lean Six Sigma frameworks to maximize Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), reduce cycle times, and eliminate waste. Partner with Product Engineering to ensure production readiness, line balancing, and smooth transitions from initial product qualification to high-volume manufacturing. Collaborate with Process Integration Engineering to ensure process readiness with minimum technician coverage during high-volume manufacturing. Drive advanced automation, robotics, and Industry 4.0 integration, including Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Cloud data integration, and predictive maintenance technologies.
• Team Development: Provide organizational leadership, mentorship, and career pipelines for teams of process engineers and technicians. Be ready to make changes to continuously improve organization efficiency. Drive timely recovery actions when execution deviates from plan and escalate issues requiring cross-functional or leadership decisions. Balance near-term execution requirements with longer-term objectives.
• Performance Management: Establish and monitor KPIs that measure effectiveness, execution, and business performance of the team. Use data and analytics to identify process risk, capacity constraints, productivity opportunities, and root causes of team performance gaps. Develop actionable reporting and operating reviews that support timely decisions and accountability.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Partner effectively with Manufacturing and Site Operations, Program Management, Global Procurement, Finance, Engineering, Quality, IT, Commercial organizations, and business leadership. Ensure process roadmap and gap improvement plans are aligned with customer commitments, NPI and production-ramp requirements, and business objectives. Ability to coordinate with R&D, supply chain, production floor operators, and executive boards. Communicate significant process risks clearly to leadership and drive timely decisions and corrective actions.

Requirements

• Master's degree in Chemical, Mechanical, Materials, or Electrical Engineering. A PhD degree is highly preferred.
• 15+ years of progressive experience in advanced manufacturing, semiconductor photonics fabs, or processing plants, with at least 5+ years in a senior leadership role.
• Demonstrated experience leading teams and cross-functional processes in a complex manufacturing environment.
• Experience managing changing priorities and constrained resources while maintaining customer and business focus.

Skills

• Proven success in leading and developing people and building high-performing teams.
• Strong understanding of photonics process engineering and demonstrated experience in resolving process issues during manufacturing is preferred.