Principal System Validation Engineer - Santa Clara, CA, United States
$150,680 - $225,700 USD yearly
Originally posted 17 October 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role involves developing and executing system and rack-level validation plans across electrical, thermal, functional, and performance domains, ensuring board, switch, and optics components perform reliably as integrated platform solutions.
What you'll do
- Lead system and rack-level validation planning for platform solutions spanning board, switch, and optics.
- Define validation requirements and test methodologies, translating platform architecture and customer needs into comprehensive test coverage.
- Drive execution of electrical, thermal, functional, and performance validation across switch systems, boards, and rack-scale infrastructure.
- Collaborate with hardware design, signal/power integrity, firmware, and systems engineering teams to ensure validation coverage aligns with system-level design intent.
- Develop and execute comprehensive board, system, and rack-level validation plans and test procedures.
- Support hyperscale, cloud, and enterprise customer engagements with validation data, design reviews, and technical escalations.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field with 10-15 years of professional experience; or Master's/PhD with 5-10 years of experience.
- Experience with microprocessor, interconnect, memory, networking, and storage architectures relevant to platform-level system validation.
- Strong understanding of system and rack-level architecture, including scale-up and scale-out fabric design, interconnect, and data center power/thermal constraints.
- Experience validating switch, board, and optics components integrated into rack-scale solutions and reference platforms.
- Familiarity with high-speed interfaces including Ethernet and PCIe.
- Experience with programming/scripting languages such as Python or C for test automation, data analysis, and validation tooling.
- Hands-on experience with system-level validation methodologies, including electrical, thermal, functional, and performance characterization.
- Experience collaborating with ODMs, contract manufacturers, and cross-functional engineering teams.
Skills: system validation, rack-level validation, electrical, thermal, functional, performance validation, test methodologies, lab-based characterization
This role has been open 0 days — well below the 42-day median for Post-Silicon Validation roles.
Post-Silicon Validation · Silicon Validation
|
Open roles in category
409
|
Median days open
42 d
|
Median salary
$167k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Marvell Technology | All employers we track in this specialty (409 roles · 61 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 9 | 409 |
| Open roles in the wider Silicon Validation & Test family | 55 | 2218 · 113 employers |
| Median days open | 18 d | 42 d (−24 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $167k |
Skills observed across this category: system validation, rack-level validation, electrical, thermal, functional, performance validation, test methodologies, lab-based characterization
Who's hiring in this category
- AMD · 58 open roles · median 43 d
- Micron Technology · 39 open roles · median 39 d
- Qualcomm · 36 open roles · median 28 d
- NVIDIA · 26 open roles · median 23 d
- Microchip Technology · 22 open roles · median 68 d
- Graphcore · 20 open roles · median 121 d
How we counted: 409 open Post-Silicon Validation (Silicon Validation) roles from 61 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 17 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 Silicon Validation & Test family row. Figures refresh nightly.