Physical Design Methodology & Flow Engineer - San Jose, California, United States
$180,000 - $255,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 15 July 2026 by the employer.
About the role
SambaNova is hiring a Physical Design Methodology & Flow Engineer to build RDU chips for machine learning and artificial intelligence.
What you'll do
- Develop and maintain physical composition flow utilizing Cadence tool sets, including Genus, Innovus, Cerebrus, etc. - Closely work with physical designers to address a diverse range of flow and design issues. - Collaborate with tool vendors to address tool bugs and flow enhancement.
What you'll need
- BS, MS, or PhD degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or Electrical Engineering. - 5+ years of industry experience in physical design and flow development. - Strong understanding of rtl to gds flow and mythologies, including synthesis and place and route. - Proficiency in scripting languages, e.g. TCL, Perl and Python, etc. - Good understanding physical design rules especially for TSMC advanced technology nodes 3nm below.
Nice to have
- Familiarity with Cadence physical design reference flow and mythologies. - Fluency in Claude / AI tools for flow development.
Skills: physical composition flow, Genus, Innovus, Cerebrus, rtl to gds
This role has been open 96 days — well above the 61-day median for Physical Design roles.
Physical Design · Physical Design
|
Open roles in category
657
|
Median days open
61 d
|
Median salary
$187k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | SambaNova | All employers we track in this specialty (657 roles · 79 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 1 | 657 |
| Open roles in the wider Physical Implementation family | 1 | 1441 · 110 employers |
| Median days open | 96 d | 61 d (+35 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $187k |
Skills observed across this category: physical composition flow, Genus, Innovus, Cerebrus, rtl to gds
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 120 open roles · median 43 d
- AMD · 61 open roles · median 26 d
- Synopsys · 38 open roles · median 34 d
- NVIDIA · 37 open roles · median 70 d
- Intel Corporation · 36 open roles · median 13 d
- Broadcom · 30 open roles · median 99 d
How we counted: 657 open Physical Design (Physical Design) roles from 79 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 20 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.