Performance Modeling Architect - Austin, Texas, United States
$100,000 - $500,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 26 June 2026 by the employer.
About the role
Tenstorrent is hiring a Performance Modeling Architect to evaluate, shape, and optimize the performance of future CPU architectures. The role focuses on performance modeling, workload analysis, and architectural exploration for RISC-V CPU cores and systems.
What you'll do
- Use performance modeling, workload analysis, and deep understanding of CPU architecture to evaluate processor design decisions. - Work closely with CPU architects, RTL designers, software and compiler teams, and system engineers to identify performance opportunities and architectural tradeoffs. - Turn modeling insights into actionable design decisions across engineering teams. - Move between high-level architectural questions and detailed analysis of CPU pipelines, memory systems, workloads, and bottlenecks. - Combine hardware architecture, software, data, and analytical modeling to solve complex processor performance problems.
What you'll need
- 8+ years of experience in CPU architecture, performance modeling, microarchitecture, performance analysis, or a closely related field. - Strong understanding of CPU architecture and microarchitecture, including pipelines, execution, scheduling, branch prediction, caches, memory hierarchy, and data movement. - Demonstrated experience using performance models, simulation, or quantitative analysis to guide real architectural decisions. - Strong programming skills in C++, Python, or similar languages, with experience developing or extending modeling and analysis tools. - Experience influencing CPU architecture or microarchitecture decisions through performance modeling results and recommendations.
Skills: CPU Performance Modeling, RISC-V CPU, AI workloads, microarchitecture development, performance modeling tools
This role has been open 117 days — well above the 76-day median for SoC/Chip Architecture roles.
SoC/Chip Architecture · SOC Architecture
|
Open roles in category
479
|
Median days open
76 d
|
Median salary
$238k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Tenstorrent | All employers we track in this specialty (479 roles · 67 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 6 | 479 |
| Open roles in the wider Digital Design & Verification family | 27 | 3283 · 116 employers |
| Median days open | 170 d | 76 d (+94 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $238k |
Skills observed across this category: CPU Performance Modeling, RISC-V CPU, AI workloads, microarchitecture development, performance modeling tools
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 79 open roles · median 85 d
- NVIDIA · 54 open roles · median 71 d
- Apple · 38 open roles · median 14 d
- AMD · 35 open roles · median 71 d
- Arm Holdings · 27 open roles · median 119 d
- Micron Technology · 22 open roles · median 111 d
How we counted: 479 open SoC/Chip Architecture (SOC Architecture) roles from 67 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 22 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 Digital Design & Verification family row. Figures refresh nightly.