Principal Application Engineer - FPGA

Job Title

Principal Application Engineer - FPGA

Role Summary

Lead pre-sales technical engagements for Synopsys FPGA prototyping and emulation platforms (ZS5, ZeBu-200, HAPS). Translate customer design and validation challenges into practical evaluation plans and solution architectures that shorten sales cycles and de-risk adoption.

Work closely with sales and engineering teams to deploy proofs-of-concept, deliver technical demonstrations, and maintain long-term trusted-advisor relationships with customer engineering and architecture teams.

Experience Level

Senior - typically 12–15 years of relevant experience in emulation, FPGA-based prototyping, ASIC design, or SoC validation.

Responsibilities

Primary responsibilities include technical leadership of customer evaluations, solution design, and field enablement.

• Lead pre-sales technical engagements for ZS5, ZeBu-200, and HAPS FPGA prototyping platforms.
• Assess customer SoC/GPU/AI design validation challenges and propose solutions for partitioning, performance, debug, and integration.
• Conduct technical evaluations, proofs-of-concept, and benchmarks to demonstrate platform value against customer requirements.
• Deploy platforms at customer sites and guide integration with customers' design and verification flows.
• Collaborate with sales to qualify technical fit, address objections, and define technical milestones to progress deals.
• Deliver product demonstrations, technical presentations, and architecture reviews to engineering teams and executive stakeholders.
• Capture customer feedback and product use-cases to inform roadmap and competitive positioning.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience for this role.

• 12–15 years hands-on experience in emulation, FPGA-based prototyping, ASIC design, or SoC validation.
• Deep understanding of RTL-to-hardware workflows, synthesis flows, and hardware bring-up and debug techniques.
• Strong experience with FPGA architectures (Xilinx or Intel) and RTL design in Verilog or VHDL.
• Proven ability to lead customer evaluations, proofs-of-concept, and technical presentations to engineers and executives.
• Experience working closely with sales to qualify opportunities and move deals forward.
• Willingness to travel to customer sites, sometimes on short notice.
• Nice-to-have: direct experience with ZS5, ZeBu, HAPS platforms, or ProtoCompiler.

Education Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electronics Engineering, Computer Engineering, 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.