Global Planning and Operations Escalation Manager

The group you’ll be a part of

The Global Operations Group brings information systems, facilities, supply chain, logistics, and high-volume manufacturing together to drive the engine of our global business operations. We help Lam deliver industry-leading solutions with speed and efficiency, while actively supporting the resilient and profitable growth of Lam's business.

The impact you’ll make

The Global Spares Planning Escalation Manager is responsible for leading end-to‑end management of high‑severity incidents, chronic issues, and escalated customer or stakeholder concerns across the Global Spares organization. This role ensures cross functional team formation, rapid containment, thorough root‑cause analysis, cross‑functional alignment, and implementation of long‑term corrective actions that improve operational stability and customer experience.

The position partners closely with Global Planning & Operations teams, Regional Spares, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Customer Operations, Product Groups and senior leadership to minimize business impact and prevent recurrence of systemic issues.

What you’ll do

Escalation Ownership & Incident Response

• Serve as single point accountability for critical business/customer critical escalations, ensuring timely, transparent communication and resolution.
• Lead cross‑functional response teams to drive coordinated actions for high‑severity operational issues.
• Assess escalation across technical, operational and commercial dimensions to balance priority across the team.
• Accurately document incidents, containment, root cause, and decisions.
• Executive communication and alignment.
• Cross-functional leadership without direct authority.
• Decision facilitation & tradeoff management.
• Monitor incident progress, remove barriers, and escalate risks as needed to ensure swift containment and recovery.

Problem Management

• Rapid Problem Framing (Signal>Noise): taking fragmented inputs and quickly framing the problem, blocking issue/decision, and business impact.
• Taking a systems approach throughout the semiconductor value chain allows issues and solutions to be assessed in terms of suppliers, factories, production, installation, customer process qualification, and customer FAB operations.
• Drive structured Root Cause Analysis (RCA) using industry‑standard methodologies (e.g., 8D, PS&DM, Five Whys, Fishbone).
• Develop, track, and validate corrective and preventative actions, ensuring long‑term fixes are implemented and sustained.
• Maintain a centralized repository of known issues, workarounds, best practices, and lessons learned.
• Partner with Planning, Operations, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Engineering, and leadership teams to ensure end‑to‑end process alignment.
• Facilitate post‑incident reviews, ensuring clear accountability and handoffs for remediation and continuous improvement activities.

Communication & Reporting

• Provide clear, concise, and executive‑ready updates during live escalations and throughout incident resolution cycles.
• Publish detailed incident reports, RCA summaries, and postmortem documentation to drive organizational learning.
• Develop metrics, dashboards, and reporting mechanisms to track incident trends, performance, and improvement progress.
• Present insights and recommendations to leadership, influencing decisions that enhance service reliability and operational maturity.

Who we’re looking for

Minimum Qualifications:

• 7–10+ years of experience in technical support, operations, incident management, supply chain operations, or similar roles.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills with the ability to rapidly understand complex systems and processes.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams and drive decision‑making in high‑pressure, time‑sensitive environments.
• Excellent communication skills, including executive‑level reporting, stakeholder management, and customer‑facing interactions.
• Strong project management capabilities with a continuous improvement mindset and experience implementing corrective actions.
• Ability to influence without authority and drive alignment across diverse operational and technical teams.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience in a global supply chain, high‑tech manufacturing, or logistics environment.
• Familiarity with ERP, planning, or fulfillment systems (e.g., SAP, Kinaxis, SPM).
• Certification in Lean, Six Sigma, or similar process improvement methodologies.
• Experience with ITIL frameworks (Incident Management, Problem Management).
• Proven ability to develop scalable escalation processes or operational playbooks.

Our commitment

We believe it is important for every person to feel valued, included, and empowered to achieve their full potential. By bringing unique individuals and viewpoints together, we achieve extraordinary results.

Lam Research ("Lam" or the "Company") is an equal opportunity employer. Lam is committed to and reaffirms support of equal opportunity in employment and non-discrimination in employment policies, practices and procedures on the basis of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions), gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, or military and veteran status or any other category protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws. It is the Company's intention to comply with all applicable laws and regulations. Company policy prohibits unlawful discrimination against applicants or employees.

Lam offers a variety of work location models based on the needs of each role. Our hybrid roles combine the benefits of on-site collaboration with colleagues and the flexibility to work remotely and fall into two categories – On-site Flex and Virtual Flex. ‘On-site Flex’ you’ll work 3+ days per week on-site at a Lam or customer/supplier location, with the opportunity to work remotely for the balance of the week. ‘Virtual Flex’ you’ll work 1-2 days per week on-site at a Lam or customer/supplier location, and remotely the rest of the time.