Physical Design Lead — Execution
About the role
We are looking for a Physical Design Lead — Execution (Principal/Sr. Principal Engineer) to drive the day-to-day physical design execution and delivery that gets Altera's chips across the finish line. This is a senior individual-contributor role for an engineer who thrives in the trenches of block and full-chip closure — someone who can take ownership of a design's execution, hold the schedule and quality bar under pressure, and be the steady hand design teams turn to when timelines get tight. You will be the connective tissue between physical design blocks and full-chip integration, with a clear growth path toward owning full-chip implementation scope. Because this role also represents Altera's physical design execution in front of senior customers, you'll need to be just as comfortable in a candid technical conversation with a customer's technical leadership as you are resolving a critical-path issue days before tapeout. This role sits on Altera's senior individual-contributor (IC) technical ladder. It is built for deep technical leaders who prefer to lead through expertise, execution, and influence rather than people management — while still shaping how design teams deliver and mentoring the next generation of physical design engineers.
Altera offers the scale and technical depth of an established silicon leader with the speed, ownership, and impact of a growth-stage company. On our senior IC ladder, your influence is measured by the designs you deliver and the trust you build — with customers and with your teams — not the size of a team you manage. This role comes with a clear growth path toward becoming Altera's next implementation leader, working alongside some of the industry's most experienced physical design engineers.
Responsibilities
- Execution ownership — Drive day-to-day physical design execution and delivery across blocks and full-chip integration, from floorplan through tapeout.
- Schedule & quality — Own the schedule and quality bar for physical design execution