Principal ASIC Design Engineer
Cognichip · Redwood City, CA · 5 days ago
On-siteEngineeringFull-time
About the role
We are seeking a Principal ASIC Design Engineer at the intersection of silicon design and artificial intelligence. This senior IC role focuses on re-imagining chip design flows with an AI-first mindset, and charting the path to incorporate enterprise and know-how into intelligent systems for AI-native production-quality chip design and verification.
Key Responsibilities
- Translate chip-design expertise (RTL/DV best practices, micro-architectural patterns, failure modes) into reusable, AI-consumable knowledge bases and agent playbooks.
- Identify bottlenecks in advanced chip design process and devise novel models, tools, and to rethink workflows to drastically change the outcome.
- Define EDA tool usage strategies and wrappers for AI-native workflows.
- Define evaluation strategies suitable for AI systems to enhance performance and grounding.
Required Qualifications
- 15+ years of hands-on experience in Chip Design and Physical Design.
- Proven expertise in Digital IC, ASIC, or SoC design; strong proficiency in SystemVerilog RTL and STA.
- Solid understanding of microarchitecture concepts: pipelines, FIFOs, DMA engines, caches, and on-chip interconnects.
- Deep familiarity with the full design cycle: lint, CDC/RDC, functional simulation, and STA.
- Ability to articulate design tradeoffs and debug complex RTL issues.
- Proficiency in Python; experience integrating tools into automated workflows.
Preferred Qualifications
- Demonstrated experience with AI/ML systems (of any kind), prompt and context engineering.
- Ability to translate complex silicon design problems into structured, executable and verifiable components in agent workflows.
- Experience with AI-assisted EDA tools or ML/chip design research.
- Contributions to open-source chip design, EDA tooling, or AI/ML infrastructure.
What We Offer
- A foundational role in how AI transforms chip design.
- A collaborative environment where deep silicon expertise meets cutting-edge AI research.
- Competitive compensation, equity, and benefits.
- Flexible work with access to world-class compute and EDA infrastructure.
Benefits
We are an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse and inclusive team.