Senior Software Engineer – Benchmarking, Performance & Competitive Analysis

Renesas Electronics•Austin, TX

1d•Onsite

About The Position

We are seeking a Senior Benchmarking Engineer to establish and lead our benchmarking and competitive analysis program in Austin. This role will drive interface benchmarking as well as comprehensive solution-level benchmarking covering industrial networking, latency, bandwidth, graphics performance, and AI workloads. The insights generated by this role will directly inform product positioning, roadmap decisions, and customer engagements against competing silicon solutions.

Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or Electrical Engineering
7+ years of experience in embedded systems performance analysis, benchmarking, or competitive analysis roles in the semiconductor industry
Demonstrated experience designing and executing rigorous, reproducible benchmark campaigns
Technical Skills and Benchmarking Domains: Industrial communication protocols (TSN, EtherCAT, PROFINET, CAN-FD)
Network latency and bandwidth measurement methodology (RFC 2544-style testing, packet generators)
Graphics/compute APIs and profiling (OpenGL ES, Vulkan, OpenCL, OpenGL)
Standard industry suites: SPEC, CoreMark, Dhrystone, LMbench, GLMark, LuxMark, Stream
Measurement & Analysis: Proficiency with performance profiling tools
Oscilloscope, logic analyzer, and protocol analyzer usage for interface characterization
Statistical rigor: variance analysis, confidence intervals, controlled A/B comparisons
Automation via Python scripting for test orchestration and data analysis
Systems Background: Embedded Linux and RTOS administration and configuration (Yocto, buildroot, FreeRTOS, Zephyr)
ARM/RISC-V architecture expertise, including SIMD vector extensions (NEON, RVV)
Solid understanding of cache hierarchy, DMA, and SoC data-path architecture
Competitor ecosystem familiarity (TI Sitara/AM-series, NXP i.MX, ST, Microchip) a strong plus

Nice To Haves

Experience publishing or contributing to industry benchmark standards (EEMBC, MLPerf)
AI/ML inference benchmarking (MLPerf, ONNX Runtime, TensorFlow Lite, CMSIS-NN)
Prior experience in a competitive analysis or product marketing technical role
Background supporting sales teams with technical due diligence against competitors
Experience with hardware emulation or early silicon bring-up for pre-silicon benchmarking

Responsibilities

Design and execute systematic benchmarking programs comparing Renesas solutions against competitor platforms
Develop standardized, repeatable, and defensible benchmark methodologies for fair cross-vendor comparisons
Conduct interface benchmarking across key connectivity standards (Ethernet, PCIe, USB, DDR memory interfaces, serial interfaces, etc.)
Perform solution-level benchmarking across application domains: Industrial Networking: TSN, PROFINET, EtherCAT, Modbus, OPC UA throughput and determinism; Latency & Bandwidth: Real-time interrupt latency, memory bandwidth, network throughput characterization; Graphics Performance: GPU/rendering benchmarks, display pipeline, OpenGL/Vulkan workloads; AI Benchmarks: NPU/DSP/CPU inference performance (MLPerf, common ML models, energy efficiency)
Build automated benchmark frameworks and test harnesses to enable continuous regression tracking
Author detailed competitive analysis reports and present findings to engineering leadership, product management, and sales teams
Support customer-facing activities by providing objective performance data and demonstrations
Stay current with industry-standard benchmarks and emerging workload requirements
Collaborate with architecture and marketing teams to translate benchmark insights into product requirements