Design Application Engineer - Santa Clara, California, United States of America
$85,000 - $202,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 13 October 2026 by the employer.
About the role
The Application Engineer provides technical leadership for customer design enablement and supports semiconductor design implementation across GlobalFoundries technologies, driving customer success from initial engagement through tape-out readiness.
What you'll do
- Own technical execution for assigned customers, applications, technology platforms, or engineering workstreams.
- Drive implementation of customer design enablement capabilities in collaboration with internal development teams and support organizations.
- Resolve complex customer and engineering challenges through structured root-cause analysis, risk assessment, and corrective action implementation.
- Coordinate technical solutions across PDK, modeling, IP, EDA, reliability, product engineering, quality, sales, and customer organizations.
- Improve engineering standards, reusable design flows, case management processes, automation, and support infrastructure.
- Develop high-quality application notes, troubleshooting guides, reference flows, operational procedures, and technical documentation.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline with 4+ years of relevant experience; OR Master's degree with 2+ years of relevant experience; OR PhD with 1+ years of relevant experience.
- Demonstrated expertise in one or more Application Engineering disciplines, including IC Design, Design Methodology, and EDA Tools Design Enablement.
- Ability to independently solve complex technical problems and develop customer-focused solutions.
- Experience leading or contributing to projects from initiation through successful completion.
- Ability to provide technical guidance and support to peers.
Nice to have
- Expertise spanning multiple technical disciplines relevant to semiconductor design enablement.
- Familiarity with semiconductor design flows, PDKs, EDA tools, and customer support environments.
- Experience providing mentoring, coaching, and knowledge transfer to technical teams.
- Proficiency with business productivity and collaboration tools including Microsoft Office, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Copilot, and related applications.
Skills: design enablement, PDK, EDA tools, design flows, application engineering
This role has been open 2 days — well below the 78-day median for EDA/CAD Engineering roles.
EDA/CAD Engineering · EDA Tools
|
Open roles in category
688
|
Median days open
78 d
|
Median salary
$195k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | GlobalFoundries | All employers we track in this specialty (688 roles · 74 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 33 | 688 |
| Open roles in the wider Physical Implementation family | 40 | 1459 · 108 employers |
| Median days open | 35 d | 78 d (−43 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $195k |
Skills observed across this category: design enablement, PDK, EDA tools, design flows, application engineering
Who's hiring in this category
- Cadence Design Systems · 153 open roles · median 168 d
- Synopsys · 65 open roles · median 38 d
- Micron Technology · 44 open roles · median 80 d
- Qualcomm · 41 open roles · median 66 d
- NVIDIA · 39 open roles · median 79 d
- GlobalFoundries (this employer) · 33 open roles · median 35 d
How we counted: 688 open EDA/CAD Engineering (EDA Tools) roles from 74 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 15 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Physical Implementation family row. Figures refresh nightly.