Staff Design Verification Engineer – High Performance CPU Core

SiFive•Austin, TX

About The Position

SiFive is seeking a Staff Design Verification Engineer to join the CPU Design Verification organization, focusing on high-performance core development. This individual contributor role involves driving the verification of key CPU core areas such as Frontend, Midcore, Load-Store Unit, and Hardware Prefetch. The ideal candidate will go beyond executing tests to define strategy, identify verification gaps, solve complex microarchitectural problems, and enhance the overall quality of the team's work. You will collaborate closely with architecture, RTL, performance, and verification teams to ensure design intent is accurately captured, risks are identified early, and signoff quality is achieved through strong technical judgment and scalable methodologies.

Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
7+ years of relevant experience in ASIC, CPU/core, or SoC design verification.
Strong hands-on experience with SystemVerilog and UVM-based verification.
Direct experience with CPU/core verification and strong understanding of computer architecture and CPU microarchitecture.
Experience in one or more high-performance CPU areas such as Frontend, Midcore, Load-Store Unit, memory ordering/consistency, or hardware prefetch verification.
Strong knowledge of verification flow methodology, including test planning, constrained-random or directed stimulus generation, failure analysis, coverage analysis, and coverage closure.
Strong debug skills and the ability to translate architectural intent into effective verification strategy and execution.
BS/MS Degree in EE, CE or CS
5-8 years relevant experience with IP/Component functional verification, preferably in Core/CPU verification
Experienced developer using Object Oriented Programing principles

Nice To Haves

Experience with out-of-order core verification.
Experience using formal verification and/or emulation for high-risk or performance-sensitive verification problems.
Experience collaborating with performance, compiler, system verification, and software teams to close verification gaps from multiple perspectives.
Experience mentoring engineers and influencing verification methodology beyond the immediate block or feature area.
Familiarity with Python, C/C++, or other scripting/programming languages used for DV infrastructure and automation.
Deep understand of computer architecture is desired

Responsibilities

Own verification planning and execution for one or more high-performance out-of-order CPU core areas, with typical scope across Frontend, Midcore, Load-Store Unit, Hardware Prefetch, or related core-level interactions.
Drive block-level and core-level verification planning, debug, coverage analysis, and closure for complex CPU features and microarchitectural behavior.
Define verification strategies for challenging behaviors such as instruction fetch, branch prediction, issue and dispatch behavior, pipeline interactions, load/store ordering, hazard handling, memory consistency, and hardware prefetch correctness.
Develop and maintain robust verification environments, checkers, scoreboards, assertions, stimulus, and coverage models that expose corner cases and improve bug-finding efficiency.
Partner closely with architecture and design teams from early feature-definition stages to review specifications, identify ambiguity, and improve design debugability and verification quality.
Drive efficient failure analysis and root-cause debug across specification, RTL, test content, and verification infrastructure.
Contribute reusable methodology, infrastructure, and technical guidance that improves productivity and verification quality across future core generations.