Applications Engineering, Senior Director - Digital Implementation

Job Title

Applications Engineering, Senior Director - Digital Implementation

Role Summary

Lead the applications engineering team in Japan to deploy and support digital implementation methodologies (synthesis, place-and-route, timing closure, and power optimization) for advanced-node chip designs. Act as the primary customer-facing technical leader, driving successful tapeouts and translating customer needs into product feedback for R&D.

Experience Level

Senior-level; typically 15+ years of hands-on experience in digital design and implementation.

Responsibilities

Primary responsibilities focus on customer engagements, team leadership, technical delivery, and cross-functional collaboration with R&D.

• Lead customer engagements across Japan to deploy digital design methodologies and solve implementation problems on advanced-node designs.
• Diagnose bottlenecks in customer flows; tune tool configurations to meet PPA and timing closure targets.
• Provide technical training and hands-on guidance on tool usage and methodology best practices.
• Manage, mentor, and grow a team of applications engineers, balancing delivery and technical development.
• Translate field issues and customer feature requests into actionable feedback for R&D.
• Build and maintain executive-level and engineering relationships to align Synopsys solutions with customer roadmaps.
• Drive adoption of new capabilities and repeatable flows across customer organizations to enable sustained deployment.

Requirements

Required technical skills, leadership experience, and communication abilities for successful performance in this role.

Must-have

• 15+ years of hands-on experience in digital design and implementation, including synthesis, place-and-route, timing analysis, and power optimization.
• Proven experience leading and managing engineering teams in a customer-facing applications or solutions engineering context.
• Direct experience deploying digital implementation tools and troubleshooting complex design issues to achieve successful tapeouts.
• Strong technical communication skills in both Japanese and English, with the ability to present to executives and work closely with engineering teams.
• Ability to drive technical engagements under schedule pressure and to coach engineers through high-stakes debug sessions.

Nice-to-have

• Experience with advanced node design challenges (7nm and below) and familiarity with industry-standard EDA digital implementation platforms.
• Knowledge of low-power design techniques and familiarity with protocols such as AMBA, USB, PCIe, or DDRx.

Education Requirements

Bachelor's degree or higher in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.

About the Company

Company: Synopsys

Headquarters: Mountain View, California, USA

Synopsys is a leading company in electronic design automation (EDA) and semiconductor IP solutions. It provides tools and services for designing and verifying complex semiconductor devices and systems. The company plays a pivotal role in the semiconductor industry, helping engineers innovate and deliver higher-quality products faster. Synopsys is committed to advancing technology standards and offers a range of software and hardware solutions to its clients globally.