Silicon Validation Engineer

DensityAI • Mountain View, CA

2d • $250,000 - $300,000

About The Position

Own end-to-end silicon validation for an AI accelerator, from pre-silicon emulation and FPGA prototyping through first-silicon lab bring-up, production ramp, and field deployment. Build validation plans, environments, and automation to demonstrate that the silicon works at scale, collaborating with architecture, design, firmware, software, and systems teams to identify and resolve issues.

Requirements

• At least 5 years of experience in silicon validation, post-silicon bring-up, or a related field on complex SoCs or accelerators.
• Strong coding skills in C, C++, and Python, plus embedded and/or bare-metal programming experience.
• Hands-on pre-silicon validation experience using emulation platforms such as Palladium, ZeBu, or Veloce, and FPGA prototyping platforms such as Protium, HAPS, or equivalent.
• Proven silicon and system bring-up experience from first chip power-on through full post-silicon validation.
• Strong debugging skills and familiarity with tools such as waveform debug (Verdi, FSDB), JTAG debuggers, oscilloscopes, and logic analyzers.
• Experience building test automation and triage infrastructure that scales across large sample sets.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills across silicon, systems, and external partner teams.
• Work authorization is required at the start of employment.

Nice To Haves

• Deep expertise in one or more of the following: AI workloads, kernel operators, and collectives; PCIe Gen5/6/7; DRAM and HBM; power and power management; silicon and system performance; 112G/224G SerDes and networking for scale-up and scale-out, including RDMA; silicon debug and RAS features; secure boot.
• Experience supporting production ramp, including SLT, board and system test, field deployment, and RMA.
• Relevant certifications; compensation may take these into account.

Responsibilities

• Create validation plans for AI accelerator silicon from pre-silicon through production.
• Build validation environments, including validation firmware, applications, test content, and silicon diagnostics.
• Develop scalable test automation and automated triage across silicon samples, tests, and test hours.
• Run pre-silicon validation on emulation and FPGA prototyping platforms.
• Lead silicon and system bring-up from first power-on through full post-silicon validation, including functional validation, power and performance characterization, and characterization across process, voltage, and temperature (PVT).
• Debug and root-cause issues across emulation, silicon, system hardware, firmware, and software.
• Support production ramp, including system-level test (SLT), board and system test and builds, field deployment, and RMA analysis.
• Partner with architecture, RTL, design verification, firmware, software, board and system hardware, product and test engineering, and external partners.

Benefits

• Equity grant per company guidelines.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• 401(k).
• Standard PTO.
• Immigration support for qualified candidates seeking to secure or transfer employment-based visa status.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed