Principal RTL Design Engineer

About the Team

The RTL design team builds the compute datapath, on-chip network, and memory subsystems inside SambaNova's RDU AI accelerator. Their work spans microarchitecture through tape-out, including RTL implementation, PPA trade-offs, quality gates like lint, CDC, and LEC, and timing closure with physical design.

About the Role

SambaNova is looking for a Principal RTL Design Engineer to own the microarchitecture and RTL for our next-generation Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit (RDU), the silicon behind our AI acceleration systems. This is a senior individual contributor role where you'll take a block from microarchitecture specification through RTL, quality closure, and tape-out, owning the power, performance, and area trade-offs along the way. Frequency targets are aggressive, so how you pipeline a datapath and where you spend area to buy timing are essential aspects of the role.

Responsibilities

• Own the microarchitecture and RTL for a major block or subsystem of the RDU, from specification through tape-out, including the specs you write for complex blocks in compute, memory, or on-chip network subsystems
• Write, integrate, and debug synthesizable SystemVerilog RTL through the full chip implementation and production lifecycle
• Own PPA for your area, hitting aggressive frequency targets through datapath pipelining, retiming, and microarchitectural restructuring
• Drive timing closure and design quality for your area: synthesis, STA, critical-path iteration, lint, CDC, LEC, and SystemVerilog Assertions capturing design intent
• Partner with design verification to define verification intent and coverage for your block, and support debug of functional and gate-level failures
• Work with architects and software teams to prototype and evaluate features that improve application-level performance
• Drive AI, automation, and new EDA tool methodologies into the design flow
• Set the technical bar in design reviews and mentor design engineers

Requirements

• B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or Computer Science
• 7+ years of industry experience in ASIC RTL design
• Mastery of synthesizable SystemVerilog for high-speed, high-performance ASICs, including SVA to capture design intent
• High-frequency design experience, including datapath pipelining, retiming, critical-path restructuring, and other microarchitectural techniques for hitting aggressive frequency targets
• Deep foundation in computer architecture and digital logic design, including arbitration, flow control, clock domain crossing, and memory structures
• Ownership of a complex block or subsystem from microarchitecture specification through tape-out on at least one production ASIC
• Experience converging power, performance, and area against real physical constraints, including floorplan, congestion, and timing feedback from the physical design team
• Hands-on experience with synthesis and static timing analysis, and with lint, CDC, and LEC quality flows
• Demonstrated technical leadership without formal authority, including setting direction in design reviews, arbitrating microarchitecture decisions, and mentoring engineers
• Scripting in Python for design and flow automation

Preferred Qualifications

• M.S. or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or Computer Science
• Depth in one RDU domain: compute and dataflow datapath, on-chip network and interconnect, or memory subsystem
• Industry-standard interconnects and protocols including AXI, PCIe, Ethernet, and HBM or DDR
• AI and ML workload acceleration techniques, and dataflow or reconfigurable architectures
• Formal property checking applied to design intent
• Advanced TSMC nodes and multi-die or chiplet design
• Performance modeling and analysis to support architectural trade-offs
• Fluency with Claude or other AI tools applied to RTL design and flow development

Pay

Base Pay Range $180,000—$255,000 USD

Benefits

• 95% premium coverage for employee medical insurance, and 77% premium coverage for dependents
• Health Savings Account (HSA) with employer contribution
• Dental, Vision, Short/Long term Disability, Basic Life, Voluntary Life, and AD&D insurance plans
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA) options: Health Care, Limited Purpose, and Dependent Care
• Full subscription to Headspace
• Gympass+ membership with access to physical gyms
• One Medical membership
• Counseling services with an Employee Assistance Program