CTO – Product and Engineering — Packaging And Test Network

The mandate

A Korean packaging and test network is nominated on customer devices but loses time after silicon freeze because package, substrate, thermal, test and assembly decisions were not resolved together. Engineering samples rely on expert intervention and are difficult to reproduce at volume. An urgent new CTO – Product and Engineering will make packaging industrialisation part of the product promise.

Approximately 625 employees and material partners span package design, process, product, test, reliability, applications and partner engineering. The CTO owns technical roadmap, product engineering, industrialisation, sign-off, change and talent and reports to the Group Chief Executive or sponsor. Quality retains independent release.

Customer requirements will become controlled design inputs. Electrical, mechanical, thermal, reliability, board and test needs must be complete enough to select architecture. Late assumptions will carry visible schedule and NRE consequence.

Package and test co-design is essential. Bump map, substrate routing, warpage, thermal solution, handling, socket and test coverage interact. The CTO will establish cross-layer reviews before tooling and customer commitments become irreversible.

Industrialisation evidence will include material qualification, process window, equipment matching, measurement, yield learning and operator readiness. A golden line with expert support is not a network release.

Engineering change must track lots, tooling, test programme, samples and customer approval. Informal parameter instructions are unacceptable. The CTO will distinguish containment from a validated repeatable fix.

Test strategy will begin before design completion. Access architecture, coverage, known-good-die policy, multisite correlation and test-time economics can decide whether a package converts profitably. The CTO will ensure screening added during ramp has an expiry and effectiveness plan rather than becoming permanent hidden cost.

Reliability will reflect customer mission profiles. Acceleration models, sample sizes and failure mechanisms require technical justification across package, material and assembly combinations. A passing generic stress cannot support a use condition outside its evidence. Raw data and disposition rationale will remain retrievable.

Product economics will include NRE, tooling, qualification, sort, retest, scrap, engineering support and lifecycle. Custom package variants must recover their burden or create reusable platform value. The CTO will challenge attractive revenue that consumes disproportionate technical capacity and prevents other design wins from progressing.

Knowledge transfer to factories and partners needs observed practice. Process windows, abnormal signatures and recovery cannot remain with development engineers. Named production successors will run supervised lots and demonstrate independent decisions before the technical team withdraws.

Intellectual-property boundaries will be explicit in co-design. Customer die data, supplier process knowledge and internally developed package architecture require purpose, access and ownership. Collaboration speed cannot justify uncontrolled reuse or disclosure across competing programmes.

Tooling and test hardware need lifecycle governance. Sockets, probe interfaces, handlers and boards may be customer-owned, product-specific or revision-limited. The CTO will establish ownership, calibration, spares and end-of-life, preventing a technically complete product from missing production because an enabling asset is absent or obsolete.

Engineering measures will cover time from requirement to controlled release, late change, reproducibility and recurring defect. Patent count or project completion alone will not show conversion. Reviews will connect technical work to customer acceptance, yielding output and recoverable product value.

Customer technical review records will remain auditable through launch and lifecycle.

Tool disposition requires documented authority.

External suppliers will operate under controlled IP, change and data arrangements. The new role exists because current functional leaders lack cross-product authority and customer conversion is time-critical.

What you will own

• Set package, product and test engineering architecture.
• Translate customer requirements into controlled industrialisation.
• Govern technical sign-off, change and effectivity.
• Integrate materials, equipment, test and reliability.
• Lead customer technical qualification.
• Build partner engineering and IP controls.
• Prioritise technical capacity across design wins.
• Develop engineering leadership and succession.

The first 12 months

In the first 45 days, review priority design wins, trace late technical decisions and identify package-test constraints. Establish readiness and change governance.

By month six, stabilise priority flows, complete co-design gates and transfer repeatable processes beyond expert lines. Strengthen technical leadership.

At twelve months, improve qualification conversion by 15 points, reduce engineering-attributable ramp delay by 35% and raise first-pass package yield by eight points. Ninety-five per cent of production releases should meet complete industrialisation evidence, with no customer escape from an untracked change.

What the sponsor will measure

• Customer requirements fixed before tooling decisions.
• Package, thermal and test choices engineered together.
• Industrialisation reproduced across normal conditions.
• Changes traceable through customer effectivity.
• External partners protecting IP and process evidence.
• Technical leadership scaling beyond individual experts.

The person

You bring 18–22 years in semiconductor package, product or test engineering, including customer and volume-ramp authority. You have converted a device nomination into qualified production across Korean and international partners.

Your prior scope should include 400 engineers and partners or a substantial packaging portfolio. Evidence must include a package-system interaction, late requirement and industrialisation transfer. Korean and English fluency are required.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is ₩580–800 million plus annual incentive and equity linked to conversion, yield, technical quality, customer outcomes and leadership. The hybrid appointment is permanent and anchored in Seoul, with accountability to the Group Chief Executive or nominated executive sponsor. Prompt availability is preferred.

Confidentiality

The network, customers, packages, processes, suppliers and technical findings remain confidential. Detail follows fit, conflicts and signed confidentiality. Applicants must not contact customers or partners to infer the enterprise.