Systems Architect

Scope   

As the Systems Architect in Ambiq’s Singapore development office, you will represent the Architecture function on-site and serve as the primary architectural guide for the Singapore development team. You will drive the architectural definition of Ambiq’s low-power SoCs, with a specific focus on the subsystems and interfaces owned by the Singapore development team—spanning audio, imaging and display, high-speed and general-purpose interfaces, and the broader question of how the SoC connects to the external world.   

This is a critical function at Ambiq that supports the delivery of the world’s lowest-power electronic devices, enabling ubiquitous AI at the edge. This is a cross-functional position working with software and hardware engineering teams, applications engineering, and field teams to ensure alignment with product requirements, logical and physical design constraints, power and performance targets, and overall system architecture. This role will encompass high-level architectural specification, IP investigation and selection, power/performance modeling, and maintaining alignment with Ambiq’s overall architectural direction.  

Specific Responsibilities  

• Architecture specifications, including flow diagrams/sequences, power/performance models, and pseudocode  
• Customer interaction is needed to ensure alignment on key features and competitive product positioning   
• Support for use case and test case development  
• Integration specifications to support system interfaces and external power management requirements/interfaces  
• Work with the FPGA team to bring up critical subsystem and interface features (for example, audio, imaging/display, and high-speed links)   
• Work with software architecture to define data and control flows, APIs, and hardware abstraction layers across SoC subsystems 
• Work with the physical design team to ensure robust/optimal implementation  
• Work with the design team to debug issues using RTL and gate-level simulation  

Expectations for a successful candidate are as follows:  

• Work with Ambiq’s Marketing, Advanced Development, architecture, and engineering teams to drive development of new IP on Ambiq Micro’s technology and product roadmaps  
• Analyze low-power technology and applications to identify opportunities for extending Ambiq’s low-power leadership  
• Help define the technology roadmap, including external and internal IP assessment, definition, and integration   
• Work with the rest of the Ambiq architecture team to gain a broad and deep understanding of the Ambiq architectural history and direction such that you can contribute the overall architecture and be the primary architectural guide for the Singapore development team. 
• Work with the engineering teams to transition the architecture specification into Ambiq Micro’s products  
• Support post-silicon analysis and efficient delivery of SoC functionality to customers for mass production   

Requirements  

You should be comfortable with independent specification, analysis, and development from high-level concepts through design and validation, as well as collaborative work with software and hardware engineering teams. Deep knowledge of SoC subsystems and the interfaces that connect them to the external world—such as audio (e.g., I2S/PDM), imaging and display (e.g., MIPI CSI/DSI), and other high- and low-speed links (e.g., USB, SPI, I2C)— targeting wearable, IoT, and mobile systems is critical, along with proven experience bringing low-power architectures to market. A working knowledge of SoC architecture, fabric/interconnect technologies, power management, and advanced process nodes is preferred. You should also be comfortable working with complete system dataflows and modeling to guide hardware and software analysis and development. 

Specific Experience  

• Minimum of 8 years IP and MCU development or similar architecture and design experience targeting wearable/IoT and mobile products  
• Experience developing novel solutions from idea to specification to design to post-silicon validation  
• Working knowledge of low-power modern mobile consumer electronic systems and embedded imaging or neural network processing required   
• Experience in advanced process technologies is highly desirable  
• BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or Computer Science (must have)  
• MS or PhD (preferred)  
• Individual contributor role, but some management/team lead experience is nice-to-have  
• Must have experience creating architectural specifications for System-on-Chip or similar complex hardware devices  
• Must communicate well (verbal and written)  
• Experience architecting how an SoC connects to the external world—for example, audio, imaging/display, and high- and low-speed interfaces  
• Strong systems-level thinking, with the ability to reason across hardware and software boundaries and to own trade-offs spanning multiple subsystems  
• Able to build consensus and drive architectural alignment across geographically distributed teams