Founding General Manager, Semiconductor Assembly & Test (OSAT) - Melbourne

About NextZen AI

NextZen AI is building Australia's first sovereign Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) facility — advanced packaging and test infrastructure for AI compute, defence, and critical national systems.

Australia has no OSAT facility. Every semiconductor used in Australian defence platforms, hyperscaler infrastructure, and critical systems is packaged offshore. NextZen AI is the first company to change that.

We are pre-seed, backed by strong strategic alignment with the National Reconstruction Fund (AUD $15B deployment mandate) and AUKUS Pillar 2 sovereign industrial base requirements. Melbourne has been selected as our Phase 1 site. We are moving now.

The Role

This is a founding leadership position. You will be the second person in the company and the operator who builds the facility from the ground up.

You will own every dimension of standing up Australia's first advanced packaging line — from site fit-out and capital equipment selection through to first customer sample, NPI ramp, and volume production readiness. You will then run it as General Manager with a direct path to COO as the company scales.

This role is not suitable for candidates seeking an advisory, consulting, or remote arrangement. We are building a physical facility and need the person who has done this before.

What You Will Own

• Facility design, layout, and fit-out — MEP loads, cleanroom specification, equipment floor plan
• Capital equipment selection and vendor qualification — attach, underfill, reflow, inspection, test

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• Process qualification and NPI flow design for flip-chip BGA, 2.5D packaging, HBM integration, and advanced test
• First customer sample delivery and qualification lot execution
• DOE design, SPC implementation, yield ownership, and OEE targets
• Technical customer interface with defence primes, AI chip companies, hyperscalers, and OEMs
• Building and leading the first engineering and operations team — NPI, reliability, FA, quality

You Are The Right Person If

• You have 10–20+ years inside an OSAT — ASE, Amkor, JCET, PTI, or equivalent — in a senior engineering or operations management role
• You have personally taken HBM, interposer, chiplet, or flip-chip packages from NPI into volume production
• You have been involved in standing up or ramping a new packaging line — you understand what that actually requires

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• You are comfortable with C-SAM, AXI, underfill and attach tool qualification, and you read yield and defect paretos fluently
• You want to be a true co-founder and build something permanent, not join an established organisation
• You are willing to relocate to Melbourne, Australia — relocation fully supported

Compensation

• Co-Founder title with equity stake of 10–15% (4-year vest, 12-month cliff, milestone acceleration)
• AUD $250,000 base salary from day one — no equity-only period
• Relocation to Melbourne fully supported
• Direct path to COO as the company scales to Phase 2

About the Founder

I am Shantanuu Roy, Founder and CEO of NextZen AI. My background is 20+ years as an enterprise security architect across Australian critical infrastructure — ANZ Bank, NBN Co, ATO, Energy Queensland, and Australian Federal and State Government. I am building NextZen AI because Australia's sovereign semiconductor gap is a national security problem, and I intend to close it.

I am looking for a co-founder who owns the technical and operational side completely — someone whose packaging and facility expertise is as deep as my systems and security background. Together we build the facility. Together we own the outcome.

How To Reach Me

Message me on LinkedIn or email shantanuu@nextzen.ai with:

• Three packaging lines or NPI programs you have led — what you built, what you ramped, what you learned
• Your approach to standing up a greenfield attach line in 12–18 months
• Your five non-negotiable capital equipment choices for a flip-chip BGA / HBM attach line

If this is the challenge you have been waiting for, I want to talk.

🌐 nextzen.ai 📩 shantanuu@nextzen.ai 📍 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia