Principal SoC Architect, Robotics and Automotive - CA, Santa Clara, United States
$272,000 - $488,750 USD yearly
Originally posted 14 July 2026 by the employer.
About the role
As a Principal SoC Architect, you will own the architectural definition of SoCs that bring together GPUs, computer vision accelerators, and real-time processors into a single silicon fabric. The role targets silicon platforms supporting robotics running NVIDIA Isaac and vehicles running NVIDIA DRIVE.
What you'll do
- Define and drive hardware architecture from early concept through bring-up and ecosystem enablement. - Collaborate with software, deep learning, and safety teams to co-design hardware feature sets tailored for low-latency robotics spatial computing, sensor fusion, and autonomous driving pipelines. - Perform performance, power, and area (PPA) modeling and analysis, optimizing for thermally constrained robotic enclosures and automotive ECUs. - Author architecture specifications and drive the development of models to validate architectural choices. - Define validation plans to ensure hardware meets strict real-time execution and safety metrics. - Participate in silicon debug, performance tuning, and the generation of user documentation for tier-1 robotics and automotive customers.
What you'll need
- 15+ years of architecture design experience in high-performance silicon. - Industry expertise in top-level SoC definition. - Practical knowledge of high-speed interfaces, including PCIe, GMSL/Camera interfaces, and Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN). - Expertise in advanced subsystems including multimedia/vision accelerator pipelines, CPU/GPU cache coherency, Virtualization, and Hardware Security. - Deep understanding of hardware support for real-time operating systems (RTOS), deterministic latency, and mixed-criticality workloads. - Master's or PhD degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent experience.
Skills: SoC architecture, robotics, autonomous driving, functional safety, SystemC
This role has been open 98 days — well above the 81-day median for SoC/Chip Architecture roles.
SoC/Chip Architecture · SOC Architecture
|
Open roles in category
470
|
Median days open
81 d
|
Median salary
$238k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | NVIDIA | All employers we track in this specialty (470 roles · 66 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 55 | 470 |
| Open roles in the wider Digital Design & Verification family | 229 | 3244 · 116 employers |
| Median days open | 69 d | 81 d (−12 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $238k |
Skills observed across this category: SoC architecture, robotics, autonomous driving, functional safety, SystemC
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 73 open roles · median 90 d
- NVIDIA (this employer) · 56 open roles · median 71 d
- Apple · 36 open roles · median 14 d
- AMD · 34 open roles · median 62 d
- Arm Holdings · 27 open roles · median 117 d
- Micron Technology · 22 open roles · median 109 d
How we counted: 470 open SoC/Chip Architecture (SOC Architecture) roles from 66 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 Digital Design & Verification family row. Figures refresh nightly.