Principal Applications Engineer - Physical Verification

Synopsys•Sunnyvale, CA

9d•$184,000 - $276,000•Onsite

About The Position

Synopsys is a leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products. We deliver industry-leading silicon design, IP, simulation and analysis solutions, and design services. We partner closely with our customers across a wide range of industries to maximize their R&D capability and productivity, powering innovation today that ignites the ingenuity of tomorrow. You have spent a decade or more in the trenches of Physical Verification, where a single misaligned rule deck can blow up a tapeout and where debugging a million DRC violations at 3nm means understanding both the tool and the physics underneath it. You know IC Validator, Calibre, or similar tools well enough to write runsets from scratch, debug them when they fail in ways the documentation never predicted, and explain to a frustrated design team why their custom cell is flagging errors that are actually correct. You are comfortable walking into a customer site where they are skeptical about switching tools, running a benchmark that proves the case, and then staying through deployment until their signoff flow is rock solid. You do not just answer questions, you ask better ones. When a customer says their LVS is failing, you dig into whether it is a netlist issue, a rule deck bug, or a layout assumption that broke three nodes ago. You are curious about what comes next. AI and agentic workflows are not buzzwords to you, they are tools you want to learn, apply, and help shape for an industry that desperately needs better automation. At Synopsys, you will work with customers who are building the most advanced chips in the world, and what you help them deploy will determine whether their tapeouts succeed or slip.

Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, VLSI, or a related technical field
10+ years of hands-on industry experience in Physical Verification, including DRC, LVS, FILL, and PERC methodologies
Deep experience with Physical Verification tools such as IC Validator, Calibre, Assura, or equivalent EDA solutions
Strong scripting and automation skills in Python, TCL, Perl, or shell scripting for runset development and workflow automation
Proven ability to develop, qualify, and debug Physical Verification rule decks and runsets for complex designs
Familiarity with Physical Design flows using Fusion Compiler or Innovus, and custom layout environments like Custom Compiler or Virtuoso

Nice To Haves

Experience driving customer evaluations, competitive benchmarks, and production deployment at semiconductor companies is a strong plus
You can walk into a customer meeting where the design team is stuck on a failing LVS run, diagnose the issue in real time, and leave with a fix and a plan
You are comfortable managing multiple customer engagements at once, prioritizing based on urgency and business impact without losing track of technical details
You push back when a customer request does not make technical sense, and you do it in a way that builds trust rather than friction
You are genuinely curious about AI and machine learning applications in EDA, even if you are still learning, and you want to be part of building that future
You can explain a complex Physical Verification tradeoff to a customer VP in two sentences without losing the technical nuance that matters
You do not wait for perfect information or complete documentation, you figure out what is missing, ask the right people, and move forward

Responsibilities

Drive IC Validator evaluations and competitive benchmarks at leading semiconductor customers, from initial setup through production signoff adoption
Develop, customize, and debug Physical Verification rule decks and runsets for DRC, LVS, FILL, and PERC across advanced process nodes
Solve complex customer issues that span tool behavior, runset logic, design methodology, and foundry rule interpretation
Lead technical demonstrations, training sessions, and hands-on customer engagements that move evaluations to deployment
Build and support AI/ML and agentic applications for Physical Verification, including intelligent debug, violation classification, and workflow automation
Collaborate with R&D, Product Engineering, and Sales to translate customer feedback into product requirements and enhancements
Script and automate Physical Verification flows using Python, TCL, Perl, and shell scripting to improve customer productivity and adoption