Senior CPU Architect - Portland, Oregon, USA | Austin, Texas, United States
About the role
This role involves developing innovative CPU features to meet performance, power, and area (PPA) requirements.
What you'll do
- Develop innovative features for CPU architecture.
- Demonstrate the value of new architectural ideas.
- Collaborate with design and verification teams to implement architectural ideas.
- Define high-performance CPU architecture.
What you'll need
- Expertise in CPU performance simulation.
- Track record of IPC innovation in architecture or microarchitecture.
- Knowledge of VLSI tradeoffs in implementation.
Skills: CPU architecture, performance analysis, design and verification teams, high performance, processor design
This role has been open 90 days — slightly above the 81-day median for SoC/Chip Architecture roles.
SoC/Chip Architecture · SOC Architecture
|
Open roles in category
486
|
Median days open
81 d
|
Median salary
$239k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Ahead Computing | All employers we track in this specialty (486 roles · 68 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 5 | 486 |
| Open roles in the wider Digital Design & Verification family | 13 | 3359 · 116 employers |
| Median days open | 90 d | 81 d (+9 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $239k |
Skills observed across this category: CPU architecture, performance analysis, design and verification teams, high performance, processor design
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 83 open roles · median 81 d
- NVIDIA · 54 open roles · median 69 d
- Apple · 44 open roles · median 18 d
- AMD · 36 open roles · median 76 d
- Arm Holdings · 27 open roles · median 124 d
- Micron Technology · 21 open roles · median 103 d
How we counted: 486 open SoC/Chip Architecture (SOC Architecture) roles from 68 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 27 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.