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KLA-Adjacent Local Roles
Weekday job-search notes for Ventura-area employment roles similar to Gordon's KLA experience: senior technical, systems, engineering management, and program leadership roles at nearby employers. Public page; separate from the password-protected wiki copy.
Target Criteria
- Ventura-area roles, ideally Ventura/Camarillo/Thousand Oaks or otherwise a practical commute from Ventura.
- Best fits: senior/staff/principal software or systems roles, engineering management, technical program or project leadership.
- Priority employers: Northrop Grumman, Amgen, Teledyne, Valex/Semtech/local engineering/manufacturing employers.
- Exclude or clearly flag: adtech, Verilog/VHDL/FPGA/firmware-heavy roles, and active-security-clearance-required roles.
Latest Report — Friday, May 15, 2026
Today's practical short list: Two new additions today. Valex Corp's Engineering Manager—Manufacturing/Applications reappeared on Indeed/Glassdoor ($120K–$170K) after being absent from the direct careers page for days—requires 7+ years manufacturing experience and could be a strong local fit. NEP Screenworks (Camarillo) has a Project Manager role at $150K–$156K for their broadcast video-display division; scope leans toward capital-project management at a live-events production company. The core Amgen software-director and systems-Principal roles remain the strongest clean matches. Defense roles continue to show clearance friction. The Guitar Center Sr. Manager Network Engineering (Westlake Village, $150K–$192K) is a caveat-eligible option at a publicly traded retailer with recent Chapter 11 history.
Search notes: Checked Amgen Thousand Oaks engineering roles (Director Software Development, Associate Director Engineering, Principal Manufacturing Systems, Senior Engineer), Northrop Grumman Camarillo postings, Teledyne Thousand Oaks and Camarillo postings, Valex Ventura roles on Indeed/Glassdoor/ZipRecruiter, NEP Screenworks Camarillo postings, and broader Ventura-area engineering management searches. Salary ranges below are employer-posted where captured; indexed/prior-capture figures labeled as such and should be verified on the apply page.
Best-fit / worth attention
Amgen — Director Software Development Engineering
Strongest local software-leadership match: manages software development teams and project execution, owns architecture/quality/security/compliance, spans AWS/Azure/GCP, serverless and microservices, CI/CD, DevOps, DataOps, COTS integrations, proofs-of-concept, stakeholder delivery, and direct-report supervision. No clearance issue seen.
Amgen — Principal Manufacturing Systems Engineer / Principal Manufacturing Technology and Information Systems Engineer
Excellent KLA-adjacent systems/program role: leads large capital and product teams, Agile delivery in GMP manufacturing, operations technology roadmaps, MES/DeltaV/Rockwell/Aveva PI, vendor and resource planning, financials, compliance, lifecycle management, and cross-functional site/global leadership. Domain gap is biotech/GMP, but the systems-and-program-management pattern is strong.
Amgen — Associate Director Engineering (Owner's Representative, Capital Projects)
Owner advocacy for capital projects: budget, schedule, procurement, quality, and risk management from planning through closeout. Leads RFP/contractor negotiations, change control, stakeholder liaison, and cross-functional project delivery. On-site presence required. Different from the software-director role—capital-project owner-rep flavor.
Valex Corp — Engineering Manager – Manufacturing/Applications
Reappeared on Indeed/Glassdoor after being absent from the Valex direct careers page for several days. Local Ventura employer (tube/fitting manufacturer, ~350 staff). Oversees manufacturing and applications engineering teams. Direct local commute; no biotech or defense domain gap. Worth a close look given the seniority level and Ventura location.
Possible fits, but with clear caveats
NEP Screenworks — Project Manager (Camarillo)
NEP Screenworks (part of the NEP Worldwide Network) provides video display solutions for sports, concerts, and corporate events; has a Camarillo facility. Project Manager role focuses on managing the capital projects lifecycle at Screenworks. Strong salary and Camarillo location. Caveat: the role is specifically for broadcast/live-events video production—domain gap if Gordon doesn't want broadcast video work. Verify actual scope vs. generic project management.
Guitar Center — Sr. Manager, Network Engineering
Legitimate senior tech management role (data center, cloud, AWS, Terraform, vendor management). Westlake Village is a practical commute from Ventura. Caveat: Guitar Center filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2024 and has executed multiple restructurings—company stability is a real caveat. Compensation is strong for the role type. Keep as an option but verify financial footing.
Amgen — Senior Engineer - Internal Process Engineering
Cross-functional process-transfer, documentation, process characterization, equipment/process-change, quality/regulatory, manufacturing, and technical assessment. Caveat: more biotech process engineering than software/systems architecture or engineering management—better as a fallback.
Amgen — Manufacturing Systems Engineer
Good systems/operations-technology fit but likely below ideal seniority. Supports MES, PI Historian, instrument data acquisition, computerized-system ownership, GMP validation, system integration, cyber resilience, and cross-functional coordination.
Northrop Grumman — Manager Programs 2
Program management support: pre-proposal planning, RFP shaping, capture-related products, senior PM liaison. Salary is at a strong senior level. Caveat: defense program context likely carries clearance friction—verify before prioritizing.
Northrop Grumman — Principal / Sr. Principal Project Manager
Good project/program execution language: schedule/budget/status reporting, IPT cadence, action-item closure, risk/opportunity, liaison across program management and engineering. Flagged for clearance friction.
Technically relevant but likely blockers
Northrop Grumman — Sr. Principal Embedded Software Engineer
High seniority but embedded C++/real-time/DoD context and requires Secret clearance. Keep as compensation/seniority reference only unless Gordon wants defense embedded work.
Northrop Grumman — Staff Embedded Software Engineer
Strong by seniority but embedded real-time, classified work, no telecommute, interim Secret clearance before onboarding. Practically poor fit for this search.
Northrop Grumman — Sr. Principal Systems Engineer
Technically relevant systems role (EW systems, MBSE/DoDAF, RF/power/function architecture, software/hardware integration). Flagged due to active Secret and defense/EW specialization.
Teledyne — Software Development Engineer
Too firmware/embedded-heavy for this search: Linux Yocto, RTOS, board-support/platform software, boot loaders. Keep only if Gordon wants embedded systems work.
Monitor / stale leads
Skyryse — Camarillo monitor
Skyryse's greenhouse board shows engineering, software, systems, and program management roles—all headquartered in El Segundo. Camarillo currently has only Facilities Coordinator and intern roles. Monitor for future Camarillo expansion, but no local senior fit today.
MAGicALL — Embedded Systems Software Engineering Manager
Local aerospace role in Camarillo for embedded systems motor control. Technically adjacent through aerospace/instrumentation overlap, but the role is embedded C and RTOS—firmware-heavy per MAGicALL's career page. Keep as a fallback if Gordon wants embedded-aerospace work.
Last updated: 2026-05-15. Public links preserved: /career and /business-opportunities.