SoC Validation Engineer - Austin (Oakhill, Office), United States
Originally posted 26 September 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role is responsible for both pre-silicon emulation and silicon validation, debug, and characterization of complex System-on-Chip (SoC) products. This role specifically focuses on SoC products used in automotive, industrial, networking, and IoT applications.
What you'll do
- Develop validation plans for digital SoC subsystems and full-chip functionality.
- Bring-up, execute, and debug validation tests on both pre-silicon emulation and actual silicon.
- Perform characterization and debug of silicon devices under process, voltage, and temperature variations.
- Debug silicon issues using lab equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, protocol analyzers, and JTAG debuggers.
- Validate high-speed interfaces and industry-standard protocols including PCIe, USB, Ethernet, CAN, SPI, I2C, UART, and MIPI interfaces.
- Develop Python, Perl, Shell, or C/C++ based automation solutions to improve validation efficiency.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
- 10+ years of experience in SoC validation, emulation / silicon validation.
- Strong understanding of digital design fundamentals, computer architecture, and SoC architectures.
- Experience with embedded processors such as ARM-based systems.
- Knowledge of hardware debug techniques and laboratory equipment.
- Experience in C programming language.
- Knowledge of ARM assembly language.
- Experience with Linux environment.
- Proficiency in scripting languages (Python, Perl, or Shell scripting).
- Experience with industry-standard interfaces and communication protocols.
- Familiarity with FPGA prototyping and board-level validation.
Skills: SoC validation, pre-silicon emulation, actual silicon, lab equipment, debug
This role has been open 14 days — well below the 41-day median for Post-Silicon Validation roles.
Post-Silicon Validation · Silicon Validation
|
Open roles in category
398
|
Median days open
41 d
|
Median salary
$174k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | NXP Semiconductors | All employers we track in this specialty (398 roles · 62 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 12 | 398 |
| Open roles in the wider Silicon Validation & Test family | 43 | 2196 · 111 employers |
| Median days open | 60 d | 41 d (+19 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $174k |
Skills observed across this category: SoC validation, pre-silicon emulation, actual silicon, lab equipment, debug
Who's hiring in this category
- AMD · 57 open roles · median 42 d
- Micron Technology · 39 open roles · median 32 d
- Qualcomm · 34 open roles · median 27 d
- NVIDIA · 24 open roles · median 20 d
- Graphcore · 21 open roles · median 115 d
- Microchip Technology · 20 open roles · median 67 d
How we counted: 398 open Post-Silicon Validation (Silicon Validation) roles from 62 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 10 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.