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Principal ASIC Design Engineer

Cognichip · Redwood City, CA

Spotted 1d agoFull-time

Job details

Work mode
Hybrid
Employment
Full-time
Level
Staff / principal
Experience
15+ years
Posted
Oct 10, 2026
Last confirmed open
Oct 10, 2026
Job description

About this role

[[JD_HEADING:Job Title

Principal ASIC]]

Design Engineer

About Us

At Cognichip, we are building the next-generation AI-enabled solutions to empower semiconductor design engineers with a 10x productivity boost through specialized generative models, agentic workflows and seamless integration with high-performance EDA engines.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Principal ASIC Design Engineer at the intersection of silicon design and artificial intelligence. This senior IC role focuses on re-imagining chip design flows with an AI-first mindset, and charting the path to incorporate enterprise and know-how into intelligent systems forAI-native production-quality chip design and verification.

The ideal candidate combines deep silicon expertise, microarchitecture, RTL, DV, and EDA workflows, into structured AI-driven and tool-aware processes.

Key Responsibilities

  • Translate chip-design expertise (RTL/DV best practices, micro-architectural patterns, failure modes) into reusable, AI-consumable knowledge bases and agent playbooks.
  • Identify bottlenecks in advanced chip design process and devise novel models, tools, and to rethink workflows to drastically change the outcome
  • Define EDA tool usage strategies and wrappers for AI-native workflows
  • Define evaluation strategies suitable for AI systems to enhance performance and grounding

Required Qualifications

  • 15+ years of hands-on experience in Chip Design and Physical Design.
  • Proven expertise in Digital IC, ASIC, or SoC design; strong proficiency in SystemVerilog RTL and STA.
  • Solid understanding of microarchitecture concepts: pipelines, FIFOs, DMA engines, caches, and on-chip interconnects.
  • Deep familiarity with the full design cycle: lint, CDC/RDC, functional simulation, and STA.
  • Ability to articulate design tradeoffs and debug complex RTL issues.
  • Proficiency in Python; experience integrating tools into automated workflows.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Demonstrated experience with AI/ML systems (of any kind), prompt and context engineering
  • Ability to translate complex silicon design problems into structured, executable and verifiable components in agent workflows.
  • Experience with AI-assisted EDA tools or ML/chip design research.
  • Contributions to open-source chip design, EDA tooling, or AI/ML infrastructure.

What We Offer

  • A foundational role in how AI transforms chip design.
  • A collaborative environment where deep silicon expertise meets cutting-edge AI research.
  • Competitive compensation, equity, and benefits.
  • Flexible work with access to world-class compute and EDA infrastructure.

We are an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse and inclusive team.

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