Also called: Photolithography Engineer, EUV Engineer
Runs the most expensive machines on earth, which use extreme ultraviolet light to print chip patterns smaller than a virus.
Your machine costs more than $150 million and is the size of a bus. You check how precisely each new layer lines up with the one below, measured in nanometers, and adjust focus and exposure. When the tool goes down, the whole fab is waiting on you.
Estimate.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Master's degree, about 6 years after high school. Bachelor's in physics, optics or engineering; many have a master's or PhD.
Ways in: 4-year college, Graduate school. Training cost: $60k – $150k.
Majors to look at: Physics, Optical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering.
Growing much faster than average. No separate BLS projection; the CHIPS Act is funding many new US fabs.
Low risk for 10 years. Lithography tools are hugely complex and changing fast; AI helps with data, but tuning and fixing them needs deep human expertise.
Classes: AP Physics, AP Calculus, AP Chemistry.
Official data: O*NET occupation 17-2199.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.