Senior Principal Engineer -Hardware Signal Integrity & Power Integrity

Job Title: Senior Principal Engineer, Hardware Application Engineering — Signal Integrity & Power Integrity

Location: Santa Clara, CA, US (Onsite – 5 days/week)

Department: Engineering / Architecture | Customer Solutions Group

Position Type: Full-time (New Position)

Salary Range: $199,800 – $266,400 / year (No variable compensation/bonus flexibility)

Relocation: Eligible

Visa Sponsorship: Available

Role Overview

As the Senior Principal Engineer for Signal Integrity (SI) and Power Integrity (PI), you will serve as the senior technical authority responsible for ensuring that customer platforms built on our Ethernet Switch and UALink silicon meet the highest performance and quality thresholds — from first prototype through mass-production deployment.

This is a deep individual contributor role with high customer and ODM visibility. Your mission is to implement best-in-class SI and PI practices across every platform you touch, ensuring performance across hundreds of thousands of units in real-world deployments. You will own layout guideline definitions, post-silicon channel extraction and simulation, compliance testing, and SerDes tuning guidance, while playing a key technical role in our evolution toward 224G and 448G SerDes-class systems and emerging open AI fabric standards.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Authority & SI/PI Leadership

• Technical Authority: Serve as the senior SI/PI technical lead for customer platforms utilizing our Ethernet switches and UALink silicon from early channel definition through mass-production qualification.
• Layout & Routing Guidelines: Define, maintain, and drive adoption of layout/routing guidelines for high-speed SerDes channels, power delivery networks (PDN), and sensitive analog interfaces.
• Extraction & Simulation: Perform post-silicon channel extraction, full-channel simulation, and "what-if" analyses; recommend targeted layout and stack-up fixes to achieve best-in-class margins.
• Power Integrity (PI) Optimization: Run/review PDN simulations covering impedance, IR drop, decoupling effectiveness, transient response, and droop for high-current ASICs.
• Compliance & Lab Debug: Lead lab characterization and compliance testing (BER/SER, eye-opening margins, jitter, return loss, crosstalk) using VNAs, BERTs, scopes, TDR, and jitter analyzers.
• SerDes Tuning: Provide tuning guidance to customers using simulation data, lab measurements, and field telemetry; collaborate with silicon teams to refine methodologies.

Cross-Functional & Customer Collaboration

• ODM Engagement: Work directly with ODMs on SI/PI guidance, board design reviews, and qualification activities.
• Reference Designs: Support the definition and validation of reference designs for new silicon, owning SI/PI from channel budgeting to customer release.
• Feedback Loops: Translate customer power/performance constraints into structured feedback for internal silicon, packaging, and platform engineering teams.
• Training & Mentorship: Develop and deliver technical SI/PI training to internal teams, ODMs, and customers on high-speed design best practices and debug techniques.
• Strategic Roadmap Input: Contribute to next-generation product definitions (112G, 224G, and 448G PAM4 systems) by bringing real-world field insights into architecture discussions.

Leadership & Strategic Impact

• Raise the Bar: Ensure customer designs are not just compliant, but production-robust at scale.
• Bridge Engineering Teams: Act as the technical nexus between customers, ODMs, internal silicon teams, and hardware engineering.
• Technical Ambassadorship: Represent our SI/PI engineering expertise in executive briefings, strategic customer meetings, and industry forums.
• Travel: Project-driven travel to customer sites, ODMs, and testing labs as needed.

Qualifications & Requirements

Must-Have Requirements

• Education: PhD, Master’s, or Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Overall Experience: 15+ years in hardware design, development, and validation of high-speed networking or compute systems.
• Domain Focus: 10+ years of dedicated experience in Signal Integrity (SI) and Power Integrity (PI) on high-speed SerDes platforms (25G NRZ through 112G/224G PAM4).
• Full SI/PI Lifecycle Expertise: Proven track record in channel modeling/budgeting, stack-up guidelines, post-layout extraction, design-fix recommendations, and PDN simulations (IR drop, transient response, decoupling).
• EDA Toolchains: High proficiency in leading EDA tools (e.g., Ansys HFSS/SIwave, Cadence Sigrity/Clarity/PowerSI, or equivalent).
• Lab Debug Skills: Hands-on mastery of VNAs, BERTs, real-time/sampling oscilloscopes, TDRs, jitter analyzers, and compliance kits.
• Customer Facing: Demonstrated experience managing complex customer/ODM engagements and resolving critical deployment issues.
• Communication: Exceptional ability to articulate technical concepts and influence senior engineering stakeholders across global teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience with Ethernet switch platforms or emerging open AI fabric architectures.
• Background in reference platform SI/PI definition and customer enablement for silicon solutions.
• Experience supporting SI/PI for platforms deployed in megascale data centers at volume.
• Familiarity with ODM/CM manufacturing flows, DFM/DFT, reliability testing, and high-volume variability.
• Familiarity with chip-to-module, copper cable, and connector ecosystems for high-speed channels.

Note on Experience Level: While 15+ years represents the standard benchmark, exceptionally talented candidates with fewer years of experience who demonstrate technical mastery through high-impact project work or industry recognition are strongly encouraged to apply.