Staff System Software Engineer, RTL-to-GDS Flow Platform

This role is for a senior flow/platform engineer who can work across synthesis, physical design, timing, signoff, ECO, and hierarchical execution. If you can envision and evolve legacy Tcl/Make/Perl/YAML infrastructure into a cleaner, more structured system while keeping active projects running, this role is for you!

What You'll Be Doing:

• Build and modernize production RTL-to-GDS flow infrastructure across synthesis, place-and-route, timing, signoff, ECO, and handoff workflows
• Extend YAML/configuration systems to model workflow intent, stage contracts, validation markers, generated artifacts, override order, and backward-compatible project behavior
• Improve Make, Perl, Tcl, Python, and related launch infrastructure for generated runsets, EDA tool setup, distributed execution, status tracking, and failure diagnosis
• Build faster prelaunch and in-run checks for missing inputs, stale generated files, invalid hooks, broken environment setup, bad constraints, and inconsistent design state
• Develop job-control and observability capabilities for hierarchical and internally launched workflows, including parent-child job attachment, logs, provenance, and structured status
• Partner with design and CAD users to debug failures across EDA tools, Linux environments, shared filesystems, schedulers, generated collateral, and configuration layers

• B.S. or M.S. in CS, EE, CE, or equivalent experience
• 12+ years building, modernizing, or operating production EDA, VLSI CAD, RTL-to-GDS, physical design, or large engineering workflow systems
• Strong hands-on experience with RTL-to-GDS or implementation flows, including setup, generated collateral, tool launch, checks, timing/signoff handoff, and debug workflows
• Strong Tcl and Make experience in real EDA automation environments, plus practical software engineering skill in Python, Perl, Go, or C++
• Ability to reason about layered configuration, includes, overrides, variable expansion, generated outputs, validation state, and compatibility with older projects
• Excellent Linux debugging fundamentals and a track record of improving legacy production systems without breaking active users

Ways To Stand Out From The Crowd:

• Background with production flows using commercial synthesis, place-and-route, timing, extraction, DRC/LVS, power, or signoff tools
• Experience designing workflow engines, runset generators, configuration systems, template-driven automation, or job-control infrastructure
• Background with distributed schedulers and shared compute environments such as LSF, Slurm, Grid Engine, or similar systems
• Experience with NFS-heavy shared filesystems, stale state, partial writes, generated input files, provenance tracking, and reproducibility issues
• Experience building structured checks, validation markers, data-fidelity tracking, dependency tracing, observability, or better-tested legacy Tcl/Make/Perl replacements

With competitive salaries and a generous benefits package, we are widely considered to be one of the technology world's most desirable employers. We have some of the most forward-thinking and hardworking people in the world working for us and, due to unprecedented growth, our exclusive engineering teams are rapidly growing. If you're a creative and autonomous engineer with a real passion for technology, we want to hear from you.

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 184,000 USD - 287,500 USD for Level 4, and 224,000 USD - 356,500 USD for Level 5.

You will also be eligible for equity and benefits .

The VLSI Productivity and Infrastructure team supports 1000+ chip design engineers with strong automation and workflows necessary to create world-changing silicon. We are building the next generation of production semiconductor design-flow infrastructure: a control-plane-driven RTL-to-GDS platform that turns design intent, configuration, generated collateral, EDA tool execution, distributed jobs, validation checks, and shared project state into observable, repeatable implementation workflows.