Principal Engineer, Hardware Emulation
San Jose · SSI San Jose · USD 219,000-351,000 · 18+ years experience · Full-time · Onsite · Posted Oct 19, 2026
At a glance
- Experience
- 18+ years experience
- Employment
- Full-time
- Workplace
- Onsite
- Location
- San Jose · SSI San Jose
- Salary
- USD 219,000-351,000 · Base salary
About the role
- The Principal Engineer, Hardware Emulation role involves working with top-tier emulation vendors to improve capabilities and debug issues.
- Responsibilities include bringing up the emulation platform for mixed-signal SoCs and developing monitors and checkers for the emulation platform.
Responsibilities
- Work with top-tier emulation vendors to improve capabilities and debug issues
- Bring up the emulation platform for mixed-signal SoCs
- Develop monitors and checkers for the emulation platform
- Debug emulation performance and area issues
- Develop and maintain the emulation environment
- Support emulation methodology and tools, developing workflows, and collaborating with various teams for productivity during debug and runtime analysis of emulation results
- Own and maintain emulation infrastructure
- Own and maintain chip level emulation models for validating different subsystems within a networking chip
- Enhance emulation methodology for robustness, test throughput, portability and debuggability
- Work cross functionally with simulation, firmware and software test team to validate the chip pre-silicon
Requirements
- Technical knowledge and proficiency working with at least one industry-standard HW emulator platform: Palladium, Zebu
- Emulation experience on any of the emulation platforms: Palladium or Zebu
- Experience with emulation compile flow, wave dump & triggers, waveform debug, running tests
- Experience writing scripts in Perl or Python
- Exposure to Makefile or other build flows
- Experience with waveform debug tools such as Verdi/SimVision
- Good understanding of Verilog and SystemVerilog RTL design
- Exposure to synthesizable SystemVerilog/Verilog code and SVAs
- Strong communication skills and a team player
Benefits
- Medical/Dental/Vision/401k
- Charitable giving match
- 4+ weeks of paid time off a year, plus holidays and sick leave
- Stipend for fertility care or adoption, caregiver support, and medical travel support
- On-demand apps and free confidential therapy sessions
- Onsite Café and gym, plus virtual classes
Workplace
- Daily onsite presence at our San Jose office/headquarters in alignment with our Flexible Work policy
Skills
- Palladium
- Zebu
- Perl
- Python
- Makefile
- Verdi
- SimVision
- Verilog
- SystemVerilog
- SVAs
