Excellence through Impact and Global Experience: Bartlomiej Nitychoruk,
Tokyo Electron’s Employee of the Year in 2025

Tokyo Electron (TEL)’s Employee of the Year is a long-standing internal award established in 1988. It honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the organization through exemplary and distinctive actions. In this article, we interview Bartlomiej Nitychoruk, Technical Support Engineer at Tokyo Electron America and a recipient of the Employee of the Year award in 2025. Bart shares his journey to becoming an engineer, the impact of this recognition, and his message to the next generation of engineers.

From Fascination in Technology to Wanting to Contribute

What inspired you to pursue a career in the semiconductor industry?

“I've always been fascinated by technology and how it shapes our everyday lives. Ever since I was young, I would always enjoy taking apart my game console. This interest led me to building computers for friends as well as learning basic coding to manage game servers that I had built. When I was seventeen, I moved to an area of Oregon called the 'Silicon Forest', which was the perfect place to move to as it was a hub of semiconductor companies and activity.

That's where I started learning about semiconductors and the deeper I got into them, the more I realized that they were really at the heart of innovation inside of everything - I mean, we're putting microchips inside devices in everything these days from medical to automotive. Just like the smartphones we carry around with us every day, we are constantly connected to networks, and semiconductors are at the heart of the technology. Knowing that working in this field could contribute to technological advancements that impact people was what really inspired me to pursue this career.”

Lessons Learned from Working in Japan

You spent a number of years working in Japan on a special engineering training program to enhance your knowledge, skills and networks. How did you benefit from the experience?

“TEL is a company full of exciting opportunities and my recent two-year assignment in Japan was no exception.

My first year was spent at a plant in Yamanashi understanding how the factory operated and what TEL’s corporate structure was. Previously, I had only seen the service side, but I had never actually been able to see things like development and manufacturing until I started working in Japan.

This time I had the opportunity to work with various departments such as product control, engineering, software development and quality assurance to really understand the workings of the company from its corporate structure to risk management strategies.

In my second year, I was presented with an opportunity to work at a plant in Kumamoto on a tool that I was largely unfamiliar with. Within the space of a year, I had to understand the tool, learn how to build it, make it work according to the customer’s requirements, and then follow it to a customer site in Singapore. This was an incredible opportunity to not only develop expertise, but also build connections with various parties both outside and inside the company.

Overall, the whole two-year experience in Japan was hugely beneficial on both a professional and personal level. The connections built could only have been made face-to-face, and you could only really gain that type of deep understanding and knowledge of the company and its products through being there and doing the work on site. There’s really no substitute for that kind of experience.”

Making an Impact as Employee of the Year in 2025

You were recognized with one of TEL’s internal “Employee of the Year” awards for your outstanding contributions to equipment installation, process development, and customer satisfaction. How has this influenced your work ethic and goals for the future?

“Receiving an Employee of the Year award was definitely a very humbling and motivating experience. It feels good to do a good job, doesn’t it? And just knowing that I was able to make such an impact on the company and do so much change really put things into perspective.

What this Employee of the Year recognition showed me is that TEL really does notice and what I’m doing really does matter. And no matter what position you are or how low you feel like you are down the ladder, the work that you do every day really does make an impact on the company and its culture.

This award has encouraged me to make sure that I'm even more dedicated to my job than ever before because I want to set an even better example for my colleagues. I also realize that I’ve set the bar very high and very early in my career, and that's become a driving factor to see what else I can achieve. If I can achieve this much at this point in my career, where can I go moving forward? That’s what pushes me forward.”

A Message to Younger Generations Interested in Our Industry

For the young people interested in working in the semiconductor industry, what advice would you give them?

“The semiconductor industry can be a little bit intimidating because of how big it is.

Semiconductors are used in everything around us and it's on a scale like we've never seen before. In fact, the semiconductor market is expected to reach US$ 1 trillion scale in the near future.

But don't be intimidated by that because when you get into the semiconductor world, you start seeing how small it is and how small the community is. Like when you travel around, you bump into the same people over and over- from customers to colleagues, they’re everywhere.

Despite this, there’s so much possibility to make change, and especially as a young engineer coming out of college, your ideas and your experiences are really going to shape the future. Even though you might think that you are getting lost in this huge industry, I truly believe that you can make a huge impact going into the semiconductor industry at this time, in this golden age of technology.”