Physical Design Engineer - Austin, United States
Originally posted 1 October 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role involves collaborating with logic designers to define design hierarchy and architect macro/design module placement to optimize PPA at the floorplan stage.
What you'll do
- Optimize designs using EDA tools to achieve optimal cell placement and construct clock trees for high performance and low power.
- Route designs to comply with technology foundry guidelines and rules.
- Verify design performance using Static Analysis and generate ECOs to resolve failing paths.
- Verify designs for electrical rules, design rules, electromigration, and IR drop violations.
- Debug and resolve flow issues during place and route implementation.
- Develop scripts and programs to automate design implementation.
What you'll need
- Experience using industry-standard tools for PnR implementation.
- Experience performing STA across multiple corners and modes, fixing setup/hold violations, and debugging timing paths.
- Experience creating block-level floorplans, including macro placement, pin assignment, power grid design, tap cell insertion, and congestion reduction.
- Experience running and debugging DRC/LVS using tools.
- Fundamental understanding of clock trees, including skew and insertion delays and their impact on setup and hold timing.
- Fundamental understanding of the impact of drive strengths, Vt-swapping, and buffering on STA.
- Experience utilizing Tcl and Shell scripting to automate PnR flows, parse reports, or create CAD utilities.
Skills: PnR implementation, STA, floorplan, DRC/LVS, Tcl and Shell scripting
This role has been open 8 days — well below the 60-day median for Physical Design roles.
Physical Design · Physical Design
|
Open roles in category
671
|
Median days open
60 d
|
Median salary
$185k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Apple | All employers we track in this specialty (671 roles · 78 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 15 | 671 |
| Open roles in the wider Physical Implementation family | 36 | 1485 · 107 employers |
| Median days open | 18 d | 60 d (−42 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $185k |
Skills observed across this category: PnR implementation, STA, floorplan, DRC/LVS, Tcl and Shell scripting
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 130 open roles · median 38 d
- AMD · 59 open roles · median 21 d
- NVIDIA · 42 open roles · median 63 d
- Broadcom · 38 open roles · median 88 d
- Synopsys · 35 open roles · median 39 d
- Micron Technology · 25 open roles · median 78 d
How we counted: 671 open Physical Design (Physical Design) roles from 78 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 9 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.