Principal Design Engineer

At Cadence, we hire and develop leaders and innovators who want to make an impact on the world of technology. B.E./B.Tech or M.Tech/M.S. in Electronics, VLSI, or related field 7–10 years of hands-on DV experience in semiconductor/ASIC/SoC companies Deep expertise in SystemVerilog and UVM (Universal Verification Methodology) Strong understanding of digital design fundamentals — RTL, timing, clocking, resets Experience with industry-standard simulators: Xcelium, VCS, Questa Proficiency in coverage-driven verification — functional, code, and toggle coverage Hands-on experience with formal verification tools and flows Experience with bus protocols such as AXI, AHB, APB, PCIe, DDR, or similar Strong debug skills — waveform analysis (Verisium, SimVision) Familiarity with low-power verification (UPF/CPF) and gls/power-aware gls simulation Core Responsibilities Strategy and Architecture Verification Planning: Define the overall verification strategy, including the choice of methodology (typically UVM/SystemVerilog), tools, and infrastructure. Testbench Architecture: Design scalable, reusable, and robust verification environments. This includes developing Bus Functional Models (BFMs), monitors, scoreboards, and checkers. Feature Extraction: Analyze architectural specifications to identify critical features and corner cases that require rigorous testing. Execution and Technical Leadership Customer Interaction: Technically lead DV execution of small to mid-sized customer ASIC projects. Handle customer interactions. Convert high level customer requirements into DV execution plan. Development: Write complex test cases and sequences to achieve high functional coverage. Debug: Lead the root-cause analysis of complex design bugs, collaborating closely with design engineers to implement fixes. Constraint Random Testing: Implement constrained-random stimulus generation to explore the design space beyond directed tests. Formal Verification: Utilize formal tools to prove specific properties or find deep-seated bugs that simulation might miss. Metric Management Coverage Analysis: Monitor and analyze functional and code coverage metrics. Gate-Level Simulation (GLS): Oversee simulations on the synthesized netlist to verify timing and reset behavior. Sign-off: Define the "definition of done" and provide final technical approval for the verification phase. Soft Skills and Leadership Mentorship: Guiding junior engineers on coding standards and debugging techniques. Cross-functional Collaboration: Acting as the primary technical point of contact between the design, architecture, and emulation teams. Project Management: Managing timelines, identifying risks in the verification schedule, and prioritizing tasks to meet project deadlines. We’re doing work that matters. Help us solve what others can’t.