Silicon Validation Lead, Principal Engineer - 19499
Validate high-speed Enterprise SerDes IP across PCIe and Ethernet architectures.
Originally posted 3 November 2026 by the employer.
About the role
As a Silicon Validation Lead, Principal Engineer, you will lead the silicon validation of IP functionality and performance, ensuring alignment with architectural intent across complex high-speed serial communication systems. You will work with the Enterprise SerDes R&D team to bridge simulation and silicon realities for early product-version characterization and customer deployment.
What you'll do
- Lead silicon validation of IP functionality and performance, ensuring alignment with architectural intent.
- Support hardware bring-up and firmware integration for early product-version characterization.
- Drive root-cause analysis, workarounds, and fixes for issues uncovered during characterization.
- Validate sim-to-silicon performance of algorithms, impairments, and key metrics such as AFE curves.
- Develop improvements to SerDes algorithms and configurations to address performance gaps and feed hardware-correlated models back to system teams.
- Support customer bring-up, review firmware regression tests, and incorporate learnings from customer evaluation boards (EVBs) into future developments.
What you'll need
- BSc or MSc in Electrical or Computer Engineering.
- 10+ years of experience in silicon validation, high-speed interfaces, and system-level performance analysis.
- Expertise in SerDes design and validation, including PCIe/Ethernet protocols.
- Strong knowledge of signal integrity, equalization, coding, and CDR architectures.
- Hands-on experience with lab validation, debug tools, and sim-to-silicon correlation.
- Familiarity with firmware integration and regression testing methodologies.
Skills: silicon validation, SerDes, bring-up, PCIe, Ethernet
More semiconductor jobs: Synopsys jobs · Silicon validation jobs · Sunnyvale jobs
This role has been open 0 days — well below the 40-day median for Post-Silicon Validation roles.
Post-Silicon Validation · Silicon Validation
|
Open roles in category
451
|
Median days open
40 d
|
Category median salary (all employers)
$168k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Synopsys | All employers we track in this specialty (451 roles · 66 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 4 | 451 |
| Open roles in the wider Silicon Validation & Test family | 15 | 2385 · 120 employers |
| Median days open | 19 d | 40 d (−21 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $168k |
Skills observed across this category: silicon validation, SerDes, bring-up, PCIe, Ethernet
Who's hiring in this category
- AMD · 63 open roles · median 42 d
- Qualcomm · 40 open roles · median 33 d
- Micron Technology · 33 open roles · median 43 d
- NVIDIA · 24 open roles · median 37 d
- Microchip Technology · 23 open roles · median 82 d
- Apple · 20 open roles · median 13 d
How we counted: 451 open Post-Silicon Validation (Silicon Validation) roles from 66 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 5 Nov 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.