Staff Design Verification Engineer – Coherent Interconnect (CHI)

SiFive • Boston, MA

5d

About The Position

SiFive is looking for a Staff Design Verification Engineer to drive verification of a next-generation cache-coherent interconnect subsystem with a strong focus on CHI-based architecture and protocol behavior. In this role, you will own complex verification problems spanning coherent data movement, protocol correctness, ordering, snoop and home-node interactions, credit- and flow-control behavior, and subsystem integration across multiple interface boundaries. This is a horizontal role with broad impact across the coherent interconnect space, requiring strong technical judgment, deep debug ability, and the ability to influence verification strategy beyond an individually assigned block. This is a Staff Engineer individual-contributor role. We are looking for someone who can define verification strategy, identify architectural and verification gaps early, solve difficult protocol and integration problems, and raise the overall quality bar for the broader interconnect verification effort. You will be part of a high performance Out-of-Order Core team that focuses on verification of components such as Frontend, Mid-Core, Load-Store Unit, Integer and Floating Execution Unit, as well as Vector Unit that implement the latest RVV.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field
• 7+ years of experience in ASIC or SoC design verification
• Strong hands-on experience with SystemVerilog-based verification
• Strong understanding of cache-coherent systems, memory subsystems, and on-chip interconnects
• Direct experience verifying coherent protocols, with strong preference for CHI
• Strong understanding of protocol behavior including ordering, snooping, flow control, buffering, arbitration, and error handling
• Experience building reusable checkers, scoreboards, assertions, coverage models, and debug infrastructure
• Strong debugging skills and ability to root-cause issues across specification, RTL, and verification environment layers
• Ability to work effectively across architecture, design, and verification teams in a fast-moving environment
• BS/MS Degree in EE, CE or CS
• 5-8 years relevant experience with IP/Component functional verification, preferably in Core/CPU verification
• Deep understand of computer architecture is desired
• Experienced developer using Object Oriented Programing principles

Nice To Haves

• Experience with ARM CHI or similar high-performance coherent interconnect protocols
• Experience verifying large subsystem integration involving coherent caches, bridges, or protocol-conversion paths
• Experience with memory consistency, cache coherency, and weak-ordering verification challenges
• Experience with formal verification, performance-oriented verification, or emulation-assisted debug
• Familiarity with Python or other scripting languages used for DV infrastructure and automation
• Experience mentoring engineers and driving team-wide improvements in verification quality

Responsibilities

• Drive verification of CHI transactions across request, response, snoop, and data paths, including corner cases involving concurrency, hazards, deadlock avoidance, and ordering
• Develop and maintain robust verification environments, protocol checkers, scoreboards, stimulus, and coverage models for coherent traffic, ordering rules, retries, backpressure, flow control, and error handling
• Verify integration behavior across caches, home nodes, request nodes, snoop filters, bridges, and protocol-adaptation paths
• Define high-value directed and constrained-random scenarios that expose corner cases in coherency, credits, buffering, arbitration, and system-level interactions
• Partner closely with architecture, design, formal, and software teams to clarify requirements, close ambiguities early, and accelerate debug and signoff
• Analyze failures efficiently, isolate root cause, and drive durable fixes across RTL, assertions, testbench infrastructure, and test content
• Improve methodology, infrastructure, and debug productivity for the broader coherent interconnect verification effort
• Contribute to review quality across specifications, verification plans, coverage closure, and debug strategy
• Mentor other engineers through technical leadership, design reviews, and verification best practices

Benefits

• healthcare and retirement plans
• paid time off

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior