How to Apply to Murata Manufacturing

13 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 2 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Murata Manufacturing is the world's number-one MLCC supplier with roughly 40 percent global share, headquartered in Nagaokakyo, Kyoto, with approximately 78,000 employees and revenue exceeding 1.6 trillion yen.
  • The product portfolio spans MLCCs, SAW/BAW RF filters, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/UWB connectivity modules, lithium-ion batteries (former Sony battery business), MEMS sensors, inductors, power supply modules, and emerging solid-state batteries and biosignal sensors.
  • Apple is widely understood to be Murata's largest single customer, and automotive electrification (xEV) has grown to over 30 percent of revenue, making MLCC and module demand structurally tied to smartphones, EVs, and AI server build-outs.
  • Most external mid-career applications route through regional ATS systems (SmartRecruiters and Workday at Murata Electronics North America, Murata Europe, etc.), while Japan domestic hiring follows the traditional new-graduate cycle on Mynavi, Rikunabi, and the Japanese Murata careers site.
  • Quantify outcomes in concrete units (yen, ppm, dB, microfarads, percent) and surface electronics-standard tools and methods such as AEC-Q200, IATF 16949, JEDEC, IPC, FMEA, SPC, and Japanese manufacturing experience including kaizen and SPC on a real production line.
  • Expect a multi-round loop with an aptitude test, a technical exercise, hiring manager and team interviews, and for senior roles a final round with a director or executive, often including bilingual Japanese-English conversation if the role reports to or interacts with Kyoto.
  • Behavioral interviews screen hard for the Murata Philosophy values of contribution to society, integrity, and autonomous management, plus broader Japanese manufacturing concepts like genchi genbutsu, kaizen, monozukuri, and nemawashi consensus building.
  • Software, AI, electrochemistry, and module-systems candidates are increasingly in demand as Murata moves up the value chain from passive components into integrated wireless modules, battery cells, sensing systems, and AI-server power delivery.
  • Cultural fit matters as much as technical depth: humility, patience with consensus decision making, genuine respect for materials and manufacturing, and a long-term career mindset are real selection criteria, not platitudes, and Kyoto company culture is notably more reserved than Tokyo or Osaka.

About Murata Manufacturing

Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. is a Japanese global electronics components manufacturer headquartered in Nagaokakyo, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, founded in 1944 by Akira Murata in a small Kyoto workshop producing ceramic capacitors for radios. Eight decades later Murata employs approximately 78,000 people across more than 90 group companies in over 20 countries, with consolidated revenue exceeding 1.6 trillion yen, and stands as the undisputed world leader in multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs), commanding roughly 40 percent of global market share, more than any other supplier on earth. Every smartphone, electric vehicle, server, base station, and data-center accelerator built today contains hundreds to thousands of Murata MLCCs, and Apple alone is widely understood to be Murata's single largest customer. Beyond MLCCs the product portfolio spans surface acoustic wave (SAW) and bulk acoustic wave (BAW) RF filters and duplexers for 5G smartphones, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combo modules, ultra-wideband and NFC modules, lithium-ion battery cells (the former Sony battery business acquired in 2017 and now branded Murata), MEMS sensors for automotive and medical use, inductors and EMI suppression components, power supply modules, piezoelectric devices, ceramic resonators and oscillators, connectivity modules for automotive infotainment and ADAS, and a growing portfolio of solid-state batteries and biosignal sensors. Murata's strategic position rests on a vertically integrated material science capability that few competitors can match: it formulates its own ceramic powders, designs its own production equipment, and operates its own back-end packaging lines, which is why MLCC competitors such as Samsung Electro-Mechanics, TDK, Taiyo Yuden, and Yageo struggle to close the gap on the smallest, highest-capacitance, automotive-grade parts. The company invests roughly seven to eight percent of revenue in research and development annually, with strategic priorities in 5G and 6G RF, electric vehicle electrification (where automotive grew to over 30 percent of revenue), AI server power delivery, sensing for healthcare and industrial automation, and energy storage. Major non-Japan operations include Murata Electronics North America in Smyrna, Georgia and San Diego, California; Murata Europe in Munich and the United Kingdom; and significant manufacturing in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Culturally Murata is a quintessential Kyoto monozukuri company in the same lineage as Kyocera, Nidec, Omron, and Shimadzu: deeply engineering-led, materials-obsessed, patient with capital, prizing long tenure and craftsmanship, and operating with a quiet pride that contrasts with the more visible Tokyo conglomerates. Candidates considering Murata should expect a thoroughly engineering-rooted, hardware-first company whose competitive moat is built on ceramic chemistry, process engineering, and equipment know-how accumulated over generations.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Search and apply through the regional careers portal that matches your target lo

    Search and apply through the regional careers portal that matches your target location: corporate.murata.com/en-global/careers for the global landing page, with regional sites for Murata Electronics North America (Atlanta/Smyrna, Georgia and San Diego, California), Murata Europe (Munich, UK, Finland), Murata China, Murata Singapore, and dedicated Japanese-language portals for the Kyoto headquarters; Japan new-graduate hiring runs on the traditional shinsotsu calendar via Mynavi, Rikunabi, and Murata's own Japanese recruiting site, while mid-career global roles route through regional ATS systems including SmartRecruiters and Workday depending on the entity.

  2. 2
    Expect an initial recruiter or HR screen within two to four weeks of applying fo

    Expect an initial recruiter or HR screen within two to four weeks of applying for shortlisted candidates; Japanese hiring cycles run noticeably slower than US or European ones, and large new-graduate cohorts in Japan follow the traditional March-to-April academic recruiting calendar with offers (naitei) issued months before the formal April start date.

  3. 3
    Technical candidates typically complete an aptitude test (SPI in Japan, or a Mur

    Technical candidates typically complete an aptitude test (SPI in Japan, or a Murata-specific online assessment elsewhere) plus a written or take-home technical exercise relevant to the discipline, such as RF circuit analysis, ceramic materials problem solving, embedded firmware debugging, signal integrity calculation, or a process engineering case study.

  4. 4
    A hiring manager and team interview follows, conducted in the language of the ho

    A hiring manager and team interview follows, conducted in the language of the host country, with bilingual Japanese-English interviews common for global engineering roles, regional headquarters positions, and any role expected to interact frequently with the Nagaokakyo home office or the Yasu, Yokaichi, Komatsu, or Sendai manufacturing sites.

  5. 5
    For engineering and R&D roles expect a two-to-four round loop covering technical

    For engineering and R&D roles expect a two-to-four round loop covering technical depth, problem-solving on a whiteboard or shared document, behavioral fit against the Murata Philosophy, and a conversation about long-term career interest, since Murata still hires with an implicit lifetime-employment mindset for many positions and openly favors candidates planning to stay and grow inside the company.

  6. 6
    Senior, principal, and executive candidates typically complete a final round wit

    Senior, principal, and executive candidates typically complete a final round with a department director or executive officer, sometimes including a presentation in front of a panel; for roles based in or reporting to Kyoto, expect at least one interview with Japanese leadership, often via video conference if the candidate is overseas, and increasingly a site visit to the headquarters campus or a Japan-based manufacturing site.

  7. 7
    Offers are typically extended within two to six weeks of the final interview for

    Offers are typically extended within two to six weeks of the final interview for mid-career hires; Japan new-graduate offers are issued in waves tied to the academic calendar, often with an extended pre-employment period that includes group orientation, factory rotations through MLCC and module production lines, and language or cross-cultural training before the April 1 start date.

Resume Tips for Murata Manufacturing

recommended

Lead with measurable engineering and manufacturing outcomes: cite the yield impr

Lead with measurable engineering and manufacturing outcomes: cite the yield improvement, defect-rate reduction in ppm, cycle-time gain, capacitance density increase, insertion-loss reduction, scrap reduction, or cost-down you delivered, and name the baseline you improved from in concrete units (yen, ppm, dB, microfarads, percent).

recommended

Surface electronics-component-specific tools, standards, and methods explicitly:

Surface electronics-component-specific tools, standards, and methods explicitly: ceramic materials science (BaTiO3, NPO/C0G, X7R, X5R dielectrics), thin-film and thick-film processing, sintering, tape casting, AEC-Q200 (passive components automotive qualification), IATF 16949, ISO 9001, JEDEC, IPC standards, FMEA, 8D, SPC, and any experience with semiconductor backend processes or surface-mount assembly.

recommended

For RF, wireless, and module roles emphasize relevant tools and domains: ADS, HF

For RF, wireless, and module roles emphasize relevant tools and domains: ADS, HFSS, Cadence AWR, Sonnet, EM simulation, S-parameter measurement, network and spectrum analyzers, SAW/BAW/FBAR filter design, antenna co-design, 3GPP bands, 5G NR sub-6 and mmWave, Wi-Fi 6/7, Bluetooth LE, UWB, and matching network design.

recommended

Show monozukuri (manufacturing craft) fluency if you have it: kaizen events you

Show monozukuri (manufacturing craft) fluency if you have it: kaizen events you led, A3 problem-solving, value-stream mapping, andon and jidoka experience, kanban implementations, statistical process control on a real production line, or root-cause investigations of yield excursions will resonate strongly with Murata interviewers regardless of the role.

recommended

For software, embedded, and connectivity module roles emphasize hardware adjacen

For software, embedded, and connectivity module roles emphasize hardware adjacency: real-time operating systems, low-power microcontrollers, BLE/Wi-Fi/UWB protocol stacks, wireless coexistence, regulatory certification (FCC, CE, MIC, KC, NCC), and any experience shipping firmware that ran in a production module qualified by an OEM customer.

recommended

Translate research and academic work into product impact

Translate research and academic work into product impact. If you came from a PhD, university lab, or government research institute, name the patents, papers, and industrial collaborations, and frame them in terms of the materials, process, or component performance problem they addressed.

recommended

Mirror Murata vocabulary used in the job description and on the corporate site:

Mirror Murata vocabulary used in the job description and on the corporate site: Innovator in Electronics, monozukuri, hitozukuri, MLCC, SAW/BAW, RF front-end, electrification, xEV, ADAS, CASE, 5G/6G, energy harvesting, biosignal, and the Murata Philosophy concepts of contribution to society, integrity, and the autonomous management of subsidiaries.

recommended

For roles based in or reporting to Japan, include any Japanese-language ability

For roles based in or reporting to Japan, include any Japanese-language ability honestly using the JLPT scale (N1-N5); even N3 or N4 with a clear willingness to improve is viewed positively, while overstating fluency is caught quickly in the interview and is a hard credibility hit. For Japan-based applications expect to additionally submit a rirekisho and shokumukeirekisho in Japanese format, following conventions strictly including photo placement, chronological ordering, and proper kanji use.

ATS System: SmartRecruiters

Murata's North American careers site (Murata Electronics North America, headquartered in Smyrna, Georgia near Atlanta, with additional sites in San Diego, California) routes most external applications into a SmartRecruiters tenant, with select divisions and European entities using Workday or SuccessFactors. Candidates create a single SmartRecruiters profile under the Murata portal, upload a resume that the system parses into structured fields (work history, education, skills), and can apply to multiple requisitions, track status, withdraw, and update their materials in one place. Japan domestic recruiting does not use SmartRecruiters and instead runs through Murata's own Japanese-language careers site plus Mynavi, Rikunabi, BizReach, and DODA for new-graduate and mid-career hiring respectively.

  • Use a clean, single-column resume in PDF or DOCX format; SmartRecruiters' parser handles standard layouts well but struggles with multi-column designs, text in images, and exotic fonts, all of which can drop key skills before a recruiter sees them.
  • Spell out electronics components acronyms at first use (for example MLCC, SAW, BAW, FBAR, AEC-Q200, IATF 16949, JEDEC, IPC, AUTOSAR) so both the parser and human recruiters can match you to requisitions that filter on those keywords.
  • Complete every section of your SmartRecruiters profile, not just the resume upload; recruiters frequently filter on structured fields such as years of experience, work authorization, willingness to relocate, and language proficiency, and incomplete profiles get filtered out.
  • Mirror the exact phrasing used in the job description for tools, standards, and regional terminology where it is honestly true of your experience; SmartRecruiters keyword matching is literal and small phrasing differences can demote your application.
  • Apply through the regional portal that matches your target work location (US, EU, Japan, China, Singapore, etc.) rather than applying broadly across regions, since each entity is a separate legal employer with its own recruiting team and visa policies.

Complete SmartRecruiters Resume Guide →

Interview Culture

Murata interviews reflect a deeply Japanese, Kyoto-monozukuri engineering culture that prizes substance, modesty, materials-level depth, and long-term thinking over the high-energy self-promotion common in Western tech interviews. Expect interviewers to be working engineers, technical managers, or HR business partners who have spent most of their careers at Murata, often a decade or more, and who evaluate candidates against an implicit standard of how the person will behave on a project team and on a manufacturing floor over the next ten or twenty years. Technical questions are deep but rarely tricky; you should be able to walk through a project you led in detail, explaining the constraints, the alternatives you considered, the trade-offs you actually made, and what you learned from the failures along the way. A common pattern is the five-whys probe inherited from broader Japanese manufacturing tradition: interviewers will keep asking why until they reach root cause, and they respect candidates who reach root cause themselves rather than stopping at symptoms. For materials, process, ceramic, and RF engineering roles, expect a whiteboard or paper-based design exercise such as sizing a multilayer dielectric stack, debugging an MLCC delamination defect, designing a matching network for a 5G band, analyzing a yield excursion in a sintering furnace, or critiquing a tear-down of a competitor module. For software, firmware, and connectivity module roles expect more conventional embedded systems questions plus discussion of how you would qualify a part to AEC-Q200 or IATF 16949 standards. Behavioral interviews lean heavily on the Murata Philosophy, the company's foundational charter written in 1954 by founder Akira Murata, which centers on contribution to society through technology, integrity, and the autonomous management of operating units; concrete examples of self-driven initiative, taking responsibility, and contributing to a customer or community will land well. Cultural fit screening is real and rigorous: Murata looks for humility, intellectual honesty, materials and manufacturing curiosity, willingness to subordinate individual recognition to team success, and patience with consensus-driven decision making (nemawashi) that can feel slow to candidates from American startup backgrounds. Interviewers will note arrogance, self-promotion that crowds out credit to teammates, and impatience with process. Tone is polite, indirect, and often understated, especially in interviews involving Japanese leadership; politeness should not be mistaken for softness, and silences after your answer are often deliberate, giving you space to add nuance rather than signaling that you should fill the air. Onsite loops at Nagaokakyo headquarters or major sites such as Yasu, Yokaichi, Komatsu, Sendai, or Murata Electronics North America in Smyrna typically include a tour of the technical center, the Murata Museum or Innovation Center, and sometimes a manufacturing line, all of which are themselves culture signals: the company expects you to be genuinely curious about how the products are made and to ask informed, specific questions about what you saw on the line.

What Murata Manufacturing Looks For

  • Engineers and technical professionals who think in long horizons, are comfortable with multi-year development and qualification programs, and can articulate why they want to invest the next chapter of their career at a materials- and manufacturing-rooted company rather than chasing rapid job changes.
  • Deep technical specialists in ceramic materials science, thin/thick-film processing, RF and microwave design, SAW/BAW/FBAR filter physics, power electronics, MEMS sensors, lithium-ion electrochemistry, embedded firmware, or wireless protocol engineering who can still discuss adjacent disciplines and integrate across them.
  • Disciplined practitioners of structured problem solving: A3 thinking, five-whys root cause analysis, FMEA, 8D, SPC, kaizen, and other Japanese manufacturing methods are not buzzwords at Murata but daily working tools used on real production lines.
  • Manufacturing literacy and respect for the gemba: candidates who have spent real time on a shop floor, led a line trial, debugged a yield problem, qualified a supplier, or managed a customer PPAP submission stand out from candidates who only know the lab or the simulator.
  • Collaborative team players who give credit generously, push back through evidence rather than volume, and are comfortable with consensus-driven decision making and the slower pace of nemawashi-style alignment that characterizes both Kyoto company culture and Japanese B2B selling.
  • Cross-cultural communicators who can work effectively with Japanese leadership in Kyoto, regional teams across North America, Europe, and Asia, and supplier and customer engineers (especially Apple, Samsung, the Chinese smartphone OEMs, and global automotive tier-ones) in multiple languages and time zones.
  • Candidates aligned with Murata's transformation toward higher-value modules, electrification, AI server power delivery, healthcare sensing, and energy storage, including software engineers, AI/ML specialists, cloud and connectivity architects, and electrochemists who would not historically have pictured themselves at a passive components company.
  • Cultural fit with a humble, craft-oriented, low-politics environment where pride is taken in small continuous improvements, manufacturing quality is treated as a moral obligation, and individual stardom is subordinated to collective long-term success of the company, its customers, and the broader Kyoto monozukuri ecosystem.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Murata headquartered, and where are the largest non-Japan operations?
Murata Manufacturing is headquartered in Nagaokakyo, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, between Kyoto City and Osaka. Major Japan manufacturing and R&D sites include Yasu (Shiga Prefecture), Yokaichi (Higashiomi, Shiga), Komatsu (Ishikawa), Sendai (Miyagi), Toyama, and Okayama. Outside Japan its largest hubs are Murata Electronics North America in Smyrna, Georgia (near Atlanta) with additional sites in San Diego, California; Murata Europe with offices and engineering in Munich, the United Kingdom, and Finland (the former VTI/Vaisala MEMS business); and large manufacturing operations in China (Wuxi, Shenzhen, Shanghai), Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. There are more than 90 Murata group companies across 20-plus countries.
Do I need to speak Japanese to work at Murata?
It depends entirely on the role and location. For roles based in Japan, business-level Japanese (JLPT N2 or higher) is effectively required for most positions, with some R&D and global functions accepting N3 plus willingness to improve. For roles at regional headquarters in North America, Europe, or Southeast Asia, English is the working language and Japanese is a strong plus rather than a requirement. Any role with frequent interaction with Nagaokakyo headquarters or the Japan-based manufacturing sites benefits significantly from at least conversational Japanese, and some senior global product management or engineering leadership roles will explicitly require bilingual capability.
Does Murata sponsor work visas in the United States and Europe?
Yes, Murata Electronics North America sponsors H-1B and L-1 visas in the United States for engineering, sales engineering, and select corporate roles, and supports green card sponsorship for retained employees. In Germany and the broader EU it sponsors EU Blue Card and intra-company transfers for technical and managerial positions. Sponsorship is more common at the technical centers (Smyrna/Atlanta, San Diego, Munich) than at smaller regional sales offices. Confirm with the recruiter early in the process, as some sales and operations requisitions are restricted to existing work-authorized candidates.
What is the difference between Murata's various business units and group companies?
Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. is the Japanese parent. Murata Electronics North America (MEA), Murata Electronics Europe, Murata Electronics Singapore, and similar regional entities are the operational headquarters in each region. Major product divisions include the Capacitor Products Division (MLCCs), the Communication Products Division (RF modules, SAW/BAW filters, connectivity modules), the Sensor Products Division (MEMS, biosignal), the Energy Products Division (lithium-ion batteries, the former Sony Energy Devices business), and the Module Products Division. Job postings will name the specific legal entity and division, which determines payroll, benefits, reporting line, and product focus.
How does compensation at Murata compare to Big Tech or other component suppliers?
Base salary at Murata is competitive within the electronics components industry and aligned with regional market rates for engineers, but it is generally below Big Tech compensation in the United States, particularly for software roles, where Murata competes more on long-term career stability, depth of materials and manufacturing expertise, and the chance to work on components that ship in nearly every consumer and automotive electronic product on earth. Total compensation includes a meaningful annual bonus tied to company performance (notably larger in Japan than in the US), strong benefits, retirement contributions, and in Japan housing allowances and family allowances are common. Stock-based compensation is limited compared to US tech.
What is the new-graduate hiring process in Japan like?
Murata is one of the most popular destinations for new graduates from top Japanese engineering universities, particularly from Kyoto University, Osaka University, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Doshisha, Ritsumeikan, and the Tokyo institutions. The process begins roughly 18 months before the April start date with information sessions, OB/OG visits with Murata alumni from your university, application via Mynavi or Rikunabi or the Murata Japanese careers site, the SPI aptitude test, multiple group and individual interviews, and a final interview that results in an offer (naitei) typically issued months before graduation. Pre-employment activities include orientation, factory rotations through MLCC and module production lines, and cross-cultural training before the formal April 1 start.
What is Murata's approach to remote and hybrid work?
Murata is a manufacturing and hardware-engineering company at its core, so most engineering and operations roles are on-site or strongly hybrid, with significant time spent at the technical center, the lab, the cleanroom, or the gemba. Software, IT, corporate, sales, and select R&D roles offer more flexibility and may operate on a hybrid schedule of two to three days in the office, varying by region and manager. Fully remote roles are uncommon, particularly in Japan where in-person collaboration and consensus building remain the cultural norm. Expect more flexibility at North American (Smyrna, San Diego) and European (Munich, UK) technical centers than at Nagaokakyo or the Japan manufacturing sites.
Does Murata hire for software, AI, and battery roles, or is it still primarily ceramics and passives?
Murata is actively transforming into a higher-value, modules-and-systems company and is hiring across software, AI, and electrochemistry. Embedded firmware for connectivity modules (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, UWB, NFC), wireless protocol stacks, AI on the edge for sensor fusion, cloud and connectivity backend for IoT modules, electrochemistry and cell design for the lithium-ion and emerging solid-state battery business, and AI/ML applied to MLCC and module production yield optimization are all explicit strategic priorities. Software and electrochemistry candidates should not assume Murata is ceramics-only, but should expect a hardware-aware engineering culture with strong manufacturing-quality discipline.
What is the Murata Philosophy, and how does it show up in interviews?
The Murata Philosophy is the company's foundational charter, written in 1954 by founder Akira Murata, and is treated as a living document rather than a wall poster. Its core ideas are contribution to society and culture through the development of advanced electronics technology, a focus on producing genuinely useful products, the autonomous management of operating units (each business is expected to be self-sustaining and accountable), the cultivation of human resources who can grow with the company, and steady gratitude to customers, suppliers, and the community. In behavioral interviews you should expect questions designed to elicit examples of each, often phrased indirectly. Strong answers describe a concrete situation, the actions you took, the results, and ideally a moment of self-reflection or learning, framed in a way that gives appropriate credit to teammates and customers.
What ATS does Murata use, and how should I track my application?
Murata's regional careers sites use a mix of ATS systems depending on the entity. Murata Electronics North America has historically used SmartRecruiters for US and Canadian requisitions, with some divisions on Workday. Murata Europe uses SmartRecruiters and regional systems. Several Asia-Pacific entities use SuccessFactors or local equivalents. Once you create a profile in the relevant ATS you can apply to multiple requisitions, track status, withdraw, and update your resume in one place. Japan domestic hiring uses a combination of Murata's own Japanese-language careers site plus the major Japanese platforms Mynavi and Rikunabi for new graduates and BizReach or DODA for mid-career, and does not flow through the global ATS systems. Expect updates by email rather than push notifications, and follow up politely with the recruiter if you have heard nothing for three to four weeks.

Open Positions

Murata Manufacturing currently has 2 open positions.

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