Design Verification Engineer

Design Verification Engineer

Location: Palo Alto, CA

Onsite

About the Role

An early-stage, venture-backed AI semiconductor startup is seeking an experienced Design Verification Engineer to help develop a next-generation chip purpose-built for large language model (LLM) inference.

The company is building a specialized AI accelerator and supporting software stack, offering the opportunity to contribute directly to its first generation of silicon.

This is a highly hands-on role with significant ownership across ASIC/SoC verification, testbench development, functional coverage, debugging, and verification closure. You'll work closely with RTL designers and architects to identify critical design issues, improve verification quality, and ensure silicon readiness.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and execute verification plans based on architectural specifications and design requirements.
• Identify critical functionality, boundary conditions, corner cases, and potential failure modes across assigned ASIC/SoC blocks and subsystems.
• Build, maintain, and enhance verification environments, testbenches, stimulus generation, and checking mechanisms.
• Investigate complex functional failures, trace issues through RTL, and collaborate with design engineers to identify and resolve root causes.
• Develop and execute directed and constrained-random verification tests where appropriate.
• Analyze functional coverage and other verification metrics to identify gaps and drive verification completeness.
• Improve regression workflows, debugging efficiency, and verification infrastructure.
• Support block-level, subsystem-level, and system-level integration verification.
• Drive verification closure and communicate outstanding risks, coverage gaps, and readiness for tapeout.
• Collaborate closely with RTL, architecture, and implementation teams to resolve design issues throughout development.

Required Qualifications

• Substantial hands-on experience in ASIC or SoC design verification, with demonstrated ownership of verification implementation and debugging.
• Strong understanding of digital logic, hardware interfaces, concurrency, and cycle-level behavior.
• Ability to read, understand, and debug RTL written in Verilog or SystemVerilog.
• Experience developing verification plans, building testbenches, and validating complex digital designs.
• Strong debugging skills, including identifying root causes of complex hardware failures and verifying that fixes fully resolve the underlying issues.
• Experience with functional coverage, regression testing, and verification closure methodologies.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with RTL designers, architects, and other hardware engineers.
• Senior-level technical judgment with a practical, hands-on approach to building and improving verification capabilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience verifying AI accelerators, inference ASICs, GPUs, or other high-performance compute silicon.
• Proficiency in SystemVerilog and Universal Verification Methodology (UVM).
• Experience with SystemVerilog Assertions (SVA), formal verification, or other advanced verification techniques.
• Background in constrained-random verification, coverage-driven verification, and automated regression environments.
• Experience debugging complex interactions across block and subsystem boundaries.
• Involvement in successful ASIC/SoC tapeouts.
• Experience developing verification infrastructure for first-generation silicon or early-stage semiconductor teams.

Why Join?

• Help develop a next-generation LLM inference accelerator from the ground up.
• Take significant ownership of verification for first-generation silicon.
• Work directly with a highly technical team of RTL designers and computer architects.
• Influence verification strategies, methodologies, and development processes from an early stage.
• Remain deeply hands-on in testbench development, debugging, and verification closure.
• Play a critical role in ensuring the functionality and reliability of a new AI semiconductor platform before tapeout.

Interview Process

The hiring process typically includes two to three conversations focused on previous technical projects, design verification experience, and engineering problem-solving.

References may be requested.

Further details about the company, technology, and roadmap will be shared under NDA as candidates progress through the interview process.