{"id":923797,"url":"https://alion.io/job/mks-instruments-director-advanced-development","title":"Director, Advanced Development","company":{"id":1042866,"name":"MKS","domain":"mks.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/mks-6","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":80,"open_postings":23,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.783,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":35,"computed_at":"2026-11-09T06:03:00Z"}},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"head","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Wilmington, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":193550,"max":322575,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":322575},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":12,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-14T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-14","last_verified_at":"2026-11-09T15:21:08Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":56,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":56},"description":"Plasma, Reactive Gas, and Controls Businesses\nKey Mission of the Role\nLead the advanced development technology portfolio for the Plasma, Reactive Gas, and Controls businesses by setting direction, aligning resources, developing technical leaders, and driving measurable outcomes across technology roadmaps, innovation programs, intellectual property strategy, and competitive technology assessment. This role is expected to provide strong technical judgment, challenge assumptions, and enable disciplined decision-making across expert teams-not personally own every technical specialty-to create sustainable technical differentiation in targeted growth segments.\nA Day in Your Life at MKS\nAs Director of Advanced Development at MKS Inc., you will partner with business, engineering, product management, operations, strategic marketing, sales, customers, and external technology partners to identify, mature, and transition breakthrough technologies that enable future growth. You will lead scientists and engineers responsible for advanced development programs, proof-of-concept validation, intellectual property development, and technology incubation. In this role, you will report to the Vice President & General Manager of the Plasma, Reactive Gas, and Controls businesses.\nYou Will Make an Impact By:\nBringing high intellectual curiosity to the role and instilling that mindset throughout the team to encourage deeper questioning, external learning, technical exploration, and continuous pursuit of better solutions.\nDefining and executing a multi-year technology roadmap aligned with business strategy, customer needs, and emerging industry trends.\nLeading advanced development programs from concept through proof-of-concept, demonstrating technical feasibility and commercial viability.\nBuilding and leading a high-performing team of scientists, engineers, and technical leaders responsible for next-generation technology development.\nBuilding and developing strong structured problem-solving capabilities across the team, applying proven methodologies such as 8D, Kepner-Tregoe, fault tree analysis, and related root cause analysis tools to drive disciplined technical issue resolution.\nIdentifying disruptive technologies, market inflections, and innovation opportunities that create sustainable competitive advantage and accelerate growth.\nPartnering with Product Management and Engineering leaders to transition emerging technologies into product development and commercialization.\nEstablishing strategic collaborations with customers, suppliers, universities, research institutions, and industry partners to accelerate innovation.\nContributing to the intellectual property strategy for advanced development, including invention harvesting, supporting patent portfolio growth, freedom-to-operate awareness, competitive patent landscaping, and development of sustainable technical differentiation.\nManaging advanced development investments to ensure resources are focused on programs with the highest strategic, technical, and financial impact.\nServing as a technical leader within the Plasma, Reactive Gas, and Controls businesses, influencing portfolio decisions, growth investments, technology direction, and long-term growth strategy.\nCommunicating technology strategy, program status, investment opportunities, intellectual property developments, and technical risks to executive leadership.\nTravel Requirements: Up to 20% of travel required.\nSkills You Bring\nPh.D. or Master's degree in Engineering, Materials Science, Physics, Chemistry, Applied Science, or a related technical discipline.\n12+ years of progressive experience in technology development, product development, research and development, or advanced engineering leadership.\nDemonstrated success leading advanced technology programs from concept through commercialization.\nExperience developing technology roadmaps and translating strategic objectives into executable development programs.\nStrong understanding of product development processes, technology readiness levels (TRLs), and innovation management methodologies.\nProven ability to build and lead multidisciplinary technical teams in a complex global technology environment.\nDemonstrated expertise applying structured problem-solving and root cause analysis methodologies, such as 8D, Kepner-Tregoe, fault tree analysis, and related tools, to resolve complex technical and product development challenges.\nExperience managing budgets, investment prioritization, and technology portfolios.\nStrong executive communication, business acumen, and stakeholder management skills.\nTrack record of innovation demonstrated through patents, publications, new product introductions, or successful commercialization of advanced technologies.\nPreferred Skills\nExperience in semiconductor capital equipment, plasma technologies, gas analysis, contamination control, particle metrology, vacuum systems, microwave power systems, process instrumentation, or advanced manufacturing.\nExperience building and leading advanced development organizations within industrial technology companies.\nStrong understanding of semiconductor technology roadmaps, future process inflections, and adjacent growth opportunities.\nExperience establishing university partnerships, government-funded research programs, industry consortiums, or strategic technology alliances.\nExperience contributing to intellectual property portfolios, generating patents, analyzing patent landscapes, or leveraging protected technologies to establish competitive advantage.\nFamiliarity with patent intelligence tools, competitive technology assessment methodologies, technology scouting, invention review boards, or business-level technology strategy initiatives.\nProficiency and practical experience using AI-enabled tools to accelerate technology scouting, technical analysis, engineering productivity, knowledge management, and data-informed decision-making.\nSupervisory Scope\nReporting Relationships: Direct management responsibility for Principal Engineers, Principal Scientists, Staff Engineers, Advanced Development Managers, and technical project leaders. Responsible for developing future technical leaders and building organizational capability in emerging technologies.\nTeam Leadership and Development:Build, mentor, and develop a high-performing engineering organization with strong technical depth and leadership capability.\nPromote a culture of innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement.\nSupport succession planning and career development for technical and managerial talent across the team.\n\nFinancial Responsibilities: Ownership of advanced development budgets, laboratory and capital investments, external research funding, strategic technology partnerships, intellectual property investments, and innovation initiatives.\nPhysical Demands and Working Conditions\nAbility to work across office, laboratory, manufacturing, and customer-site environments.\nAbility to enter laboratory and manufacturing environments while complying with all safety requirements and PPE guidelines.\nFrequent interaction with senior executives, technical experts, customers, universities, research partners, and industry leaders.\nMay be involved in the evaluation of experimental systems, advanced prototypes, emerging technology platforms, and technology due diligence or strategic partnership evaluations.\nCompensation and Benefits:\nSalary Pay Range: $193,550.00 - 322,575.00 per year. This range is a good faith estimate of the expected salary range for this position, based on a wide range of factors including qualifications, experience and training, operational and business needs and other considerations permitted by law.\nBonus: This position is eligible for a discretionary annual bonus, in an amount to be determined by MKS [or as applicable].\nBenefits: MKS offers a comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance coverage (medical, dental and vision), 401(k) with company match, life and disability insurance, 12 paid holidays, sick time, 15 paid vacation days, [6 weeks fully paid] parental leave, adoption assistance and tuition reimbursement [and for participation in any stock programs, signing bonus, etc.\nMKS is an equal opportunity employer, including disability, veteran status and all categories protected by law. Please review our EOE statements for additional details. MKS is generally only hiring candidates who reside in states where we are registered to do business.\nGlobally, our policy is to recruit individuals from wide and diverse backgrounds. However, certain positions require access to controlled goods and technologies subject to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) or Export Administration Regulations (EAR). Applicants for these positions may need to be “U.S. persons.” “U.S. persons” are generally defined as U.S. citizens, noncitizen nationals, lawful permanent residents (or, green card holders), individuals granted asylum, and individuals admitted as refugees.\nMKS Inc. and its affiliates and subsidiaries (“MKS”) is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer: diverse candidates are encouraged to apply. We win as a team and are committed to recruiting and hiring qualified applicants regardless of race, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), religion, age, ancestry, physical or mental disability or handicap, marital status, membership in the uniformed services, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, or any other category protected by applicable law. Hiring decisions are based on merit, qualifications and business needs. We conduct background checks and drug screens, in accordance with applicable law and company policies.MKS is generally only hiring candidates who reside in states where we are registered to do business.\nIt is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.\nMKS is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process due to a disability, please contact us at: .\nIf applying for a specific job, please include the requisition number (ex: RXXXX), the title and location of the role","description_format":"text","description_chars":10509,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":12,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"master","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Growth opportunities","Health insurance","Insurance coverage","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Lasers & Laser Systems","Chemical Manufacturing","Semiconductor Equipment"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-15T04:13:49Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":0,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 4","filings_12m":4,"filings_prev_12m":3,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":137500,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-09T07:32:21+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":21,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.578,"p_room":0.36,"age_days":56,"expected_fill_days":35,"reasons":["conf:0","stale_co","velocity","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-09T06:03:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":322575,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/mks-instruments-director-advanced-development","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/mks-instruments-director-advanced-development.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-09T22:39:12Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":12424,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-10T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1042866},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1042866"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fmks-instruments-director-advanced-development"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fmks-instruments-director-advanced-development"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fmks-instruments-director-advanced-development"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/mks-instruments-director-advanced-development\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fmks-instruments-director-advanced-development"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":923797}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"mks.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":923797},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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