Lead Product Engineer

Job Title

Lead Product Engineer

Role Summary

The Lead Product Engineer provides place-and-route and timing-closure expertise to customers and to R&D within the Digital and Signoff team. The role focuses on debugging customer problems, validating and deploying Innovus software enhancements, and improving RTL-to-GDSII flows and PPA at 16nm and below.

Works closely with customers, R&D, and release teams to resolve issues, run benchmarks, and develop automated flows and solutions that improve product quality and delivery.

Experience Level

Mid-level — typically 4–7 years of relevant experience in digital implementation and ASIC physical design.

Responsibilities

Primary responsibilities include customer support, product validation, and collaboration with R&D to improve Innovus features and delivery.

• Provide place-and-route and timing-closure expertise for customer engagements and product engineering.
• Analyze and debug timing, PPA, and silicon signoff issues at 16nm and below nodes.
• Test, validate, and deploy enhancements to Innovus for key customers.
• Run design benchmarks, develop implementation flows, and optimize performance, power, and area (PPA).
• Track customer issues and coordinate fixes with R&D and release teams.
• Document test results and provide actionable recommendations for product improvements.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience; nice-to-have items noted.

• Must-have: Strong understanding of VLSI physical design and timing analysis, including clock tree synthesis and routing optimization.
• Must-have: Experience with industry-standard EDA tools for synthesis, physical design, and signoff at 16nm and below.
• Must-have: Automation and scripting skills (Perl, Tcl, shell).
• Must-have: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills; demonstrated ability to debug complex design issues.
• Nice-to-have: Exposure to hierarchical design methodologies and low-power design techniques.
• Nice-to-have: Experience developing and running design benchmarks and creating optimized flows.

Education Requirements

Bachelor's degree preferred (BE/BTech/ME/MTech) in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field; equivalent practical experience is acceptable.

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.