Director, Pilot Line & Facility

PH-009 | Founding Leadership | Boston, MA | Onsite | $190K – $260K base + equity

About Prahelika

Prahelika is building the domestic integration layer: 3D systems in which III-V semiconductors, state-of-the-art silicon, and novel interposers are stacked into one device, each doing what it does best. We co-design the signal path, the power tier, the thermal path, and the manufacturing process, so dies from any foundry become a system that silicon alone cannot deliver. Our first 3D systems serve defense radar and low-Earth-orbit satellite communications; the same platform extends to power electronics, data-center compute, and photonics. Backed by top-tier investors and built by engineers who demonstrated every tier of the stack as measured hardware before the company existed, Prahelika owns the layer between the transistor and the machine. Ultimate electronics through integration.

The role

Whoever owns a design here sees it through fabrication, packaging, measurement, shipping, and the next revision. One of our four founding axioms is to vertically integrate: we own the key processes and manufacture onshore. A process is recipes and yield, and it cannot be licensed. Today those processes run on university tools and partner lines. The next step is a line of our own.

You will build it. As Director of the Integration Facility, you own the program from site selection and letter of intent through tool set, cleanroom build-out, process transfer, staffing, and first qualified lots, and you carry it into the operating facility that runs our 3D integration processes for our own products and, in time, for others. This is a founding leadership role that reports to the CEO, and it starts with a plan and a site, not a building.

Required qualifications

• 10+ years in semiconductor fab, advanced packaging, or MEMS manufacturing, including at least one facility, line, or major tool set you built, expanded, or brought up from planning to qualified production.

• Deep familiarity with the tool set of advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration: bonders, lithography, plating, laser and plasma dicing, thinning, metrology, and the facilities (cleanroom class, gases, chemicals, abatement) that support them.

• A track record of process transfer from a university, partner, or pilot line into a production environment, with the yield data to show it worked.

• Hands-on experience in at least two of the following:

  • Facility programs: site selection, cleanroom design and construction, capital planning, vendor and contractor management, permitting.

  • Building and leading a manufacturing organization: process, equipment, and facilities engineers, technicians, and shift structure.

  • Quality and reliability systems suited to defense and space customers (AS9100, ISO 9001, MIL-STD-883 flows, ITAR-compliant operations).

  • Government or public-private manufacturing programs and the compliance, reporting, and audit readiness that come with them.

• This role involves work that may be subject to U.S. export-control laws. Prahelika assesses access requirements for the specific work and, where needed, evaluates available government authorization options before granting access to controlled technology. Program assignments are subject to applicable legal requirements.

Preferred qualifications

• Compound-semiconductor, glass, or non-organic substrate processing.

• Prior experience at a startup or in a greenfield facility, where the plan and the budget were yours.

Responsibilities

• Own the facility program end to end: site, letter of intent, capital plan, cleanroom design, tool selection, build-out, and bring-up, on the schedule the business needs.

• Transfer our integration processes from university and partner lines into the facility, with recipes, travelers, and yield data that survive the move.

• Hire and lead the process, equipment, and facilities team, and set the operating rhythm of the line.

• Establish the quality, reliability, safety, and compliance systems that defense and space customers will audit, before they ask.

• Work directly with the founders, the integration engineer, and our partners so the facility serves the product roadmap, and report progress to the board and to government stakeholders.

How we work

• Leaders here work across the stack. You will be expected to understand the products the line builds well enough to argue with the engineers about what the process can and cannot do.

• AI is a cornerstone of how we engineer. You will build your own workflows with tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, or Codex, compatible with Prahelika's AI ecosystem, with physically grounded checks on what they produce.

• No one is asked to cut a corner they would be ashamed to defend. If a deadline can only be met by skipping a reliability test, the deadline moves, and the engineer who refuses to sign off on something unsound is protected, not punished.

• Credit and authorship follow contribution, not seniority. If your name belongs on the work, it is there.

• Excellence of mind and body is a working condition, not a reward for finishing. Tired decisions end up in hardware; we expect you to sleep, train, and step away, and we do not mistake hours logged for work delivered.

Compensation and benefits

• $190K – $260K base salary plus founding-team equity. Final compensation depends on experience and skills.

• Full medical, dental, and vision coverage with HSA; 401(k) with 4% company match; daily meals.

How to apply

Apply using the form for this role. If available, please include a brief description of one project that best represents your work on this kind of problem; we read that more closely than a cover letter.

Prahelika is an equal opportunity employer. We hire on demonstrated ability, without regard to any protected characteristic.