Lead Firmware Engineer

Job Title

Lead Firmware Engineer

Role Summary

Develop and maintain bare-metal firmware for DDR5 PHY microcontroller subsystems, working at the firmware–hardware boundary. The role sits on the DDR PHY IP Front End Design team and focuses on firmware development, RTL co-simulation, silicon bring-up, and collaboration with hardware designers, memory subsystem architects, and verification engineers.

Experience Level

Senior level. (No years-of-experience specified.)

Responsibilities

Primary responsibilities include firmware development, verification, and cross-team integration.

• Design and implement bare-metal firmware in C for DDR5 PHY microcontroller subsystems, including low-level APIs.
• Collaborate with hardware designers and memory subsystem architects to derive and implement training algorithms for DDR5.
• Develop firmware–hardware co-verification plans and execute RTL-based simulations (C + Verilog) to validate firmware behavior.
• Debug firmware in RTL simulations and on silicon bring-up boards; diagnose issues across firmware, RTL, and hardware.
• Create and use scripts and verification flows to automate testing and analysis; work with simulators and waveform viewers.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience.

• Strong knowledge of DDR5 JEDEC specifications and common DIMM configurations.
• Proven experience developing bare-metal firmware for high-speed SerDes or memory-interface PHY blocks.
• Proficiency in C for embedded/bare-metal development and familiarity with relevant IDEs and toolchains.
• Experience debugging firmware in RTL simulations and understanding of microcontroller subsystems.
• Scripting skills (Shell, Perl, Python, or TCL) for test automation and tooling.
• Experience with verification EDA tools (simulators, waveform viewers) and debug workflows.

Education Requirements

Not specified.

About the Company

Company: Cadence Design Systems

Headquarters: San Jose, California, USA

Cadence Design Systems is a global electronic design automation company that provides software, hardware, and intellectual property for designing advanced semiconductor chips. With over 25 years in the industry, Cadence is known for its innovative technology solutions and has been recognized by Fortune Magazine as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For. The company is dedicated to solving complex technical challenges in order to enable customers to create revolutionary products and experiences.