Staff / Senior Staff Physical Design Engineer
$150,000 - $220,000 USD yearly
Drive full-chip and block-level netlist-to-GDSII physical implementation using Synopsys ICC2, Cadence Innovus, and PrimeTime.
About the role
As a Staff / Senior Staff Physical Design Engineer, you will be responsible for driving full-chip or block-level physical implementation from netlist to GDSII while achieving timing, power, and area (PPA) targets.
What you'll do
- Own the end-to-end physical design flow, covering synthesis support, floorplanning, placement, CTS, routing, and signoff.
- Drive timing closure (setup/hold) across multiple PVT corners using advanced STA methodologies such as OCV/POCV.
- Perform and debug DRC, LVS, EM, and IR issues to achieve clean signoff.
- Handle ECO flows, including late-stage timing and functional fixes.
- Integrate and validate hard macros, including SRAMs, IOs, and analog blocks.
- Develop and enhance automation scripts using TCL and Python for physical design flows.
What you'll need
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field.
- 8–12 years of experience in ASIC physical design with proven experience in full-chip or large block implementation and tapeouts.
- Strong expertise in floorplanning, power planning, placement, CTS, routing, physical verification, and Static Timing Analysis (STA).
- Hands-on experience with industry-standard EDA tools including Synopsys ICC2 or Cadence Innovus, Synopsys PrimeTime, and Mentor Calibre.
- Experience with advanced process nodes.
Nice to have
- Experience with low-power design techniques using UPF or CPF, multi-voltage designs, and power domains.
- Knowledge of EMIR analysis tools such as Ansys RedHawk-SC.
- Experience with high-speed interfaces or complex SoCs (CPU/GPU/AI).
- Exposure to GLS and timing-related silicon debug.
- Scripting expertise in Python and TCL.
Skills: graphics processors, semiconductor startup, physical design
More semiconductor jobs: Physical design jobs · Sunnyvale jobs
This role has been open 199 days — well above the 59-day median for Physical Design roles.
Physical Design · Physical Design
|
Open roles in category
717
|
Median days open
59 d
|
Category median salary (all employers)
$187k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Bolt Graphics | All employers we track in this specialty (717 roles · 87 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 3 | 717 |
| Open roles in the wider Physical Implementation family | 3 | 1606 · 116 employers |
| Median days open | 141 d | 59 d (+82 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $187k |
Skills observed across this category: graphics processors, semiconductor startup, physical design
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 104 open roles · median 59 d
- AMD · 63 open roles · median 40 d
- Broadcom · 47 open roles · median 19 d
- NVIDIA · 45 open roles · median 81 d
- Synopsys · 44 open roles · median 38 d
- Intel Corporation · 32 open roles · median 30 d
How we counted: 717 open Physical Design (Physical Design) roles from 87 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 8 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 Physical Implementation family row. Figures refresh nightly.