Principal Design Verification Engineer – CPU Core Frontend

Job Title

Principal Design Verification Engineer – CPU Core Frontend

Role Summary

Lead verification strategy and execution for the CPU frontend of a high-performance out-of-order core. The role focuses on branch prediction, instruction fetch, redirects/recovery, and frontend interfaces, working closely with architecture, RTL, performance, and verification teams.

This is a senior technical lead role responsible for defining architecture-aware verification approaches, identifying microarchitectural risk early, and raising verification quality across the CPU DV organization.

Experience Level

Senior — requires 12+ years of relevant CPU/core or SoC functional verification experience (as specified in the posting).

Responsibilities

Deliver verification planning, execution, and signoff for CPU frontend features and mentor others to scale methodology and infrastructure.

• Lead verification planning and execution for frontend functionality, including branch prediction and instruction fetch behavior.
• Define verification strategy, test plans, checkers, scoreboards, assertions, stimulus strategies, and coverage models.
• Verify branch prediction flows: direction, indirect/target prediction, return prediction, predictor training/update, redirect generation, and recovery.
• Verify instruction fetch behavior: fetch packet correctness, PC sequencing, fetch ordering, ITLB/translation interactions, exception reporting, cache-related fetch behavior, and redirect handling.
• Collaborate with architects and designers early to review specs, remove ambiguity, and improve debugability and verification completeness.
• Drive block-level and core-level coverage closure, gap identification, bug triage, and signoff readiness.
• Apply appropriate methods (simulation, formal, emulation) for high-risk or hard-to-observe behaviors.
• Mentor engineers and shape reusable verification approaches, infrastructure, and methodology for future CPU generations.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience for successful performance in this role.

• 12+ years of relevant experience in CPU/core or SoC functional verification, with substantial high-performance CPU verification background.
• Direct experience with out-of-order CPU core verification and strong understanding of CPU microarchitecture.
• Deep expertise in CPU frontend verification, especially branch prediction and instruction fetch verification.
• Strong verification methodology: test planning, stimulus generation, failure analysis, coverage analysis, and coverage closure.
• Strong debug skills and ability to translate architectural intent into an effective verification strategy and execution plan.
• Strong software and scripting fundamentals for building scalable DV infrastructure, automation, and analysis workflows; seasoned developer using object-oriented programming principles.
• 8+ years direct experience verifying memory management units / memory management verification, including hypervisor/virtualization-related behavior.
• Deep understanding of computer architecture relevant to frontend and memory interactions.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience verifying advanced frontend architectures or decoupled fetch/prediction pipelines.
• Experience with formal verification for bounded/control-heavy/interface-sensitive frontend problems.
• Experience using emulation or acceleration to scale large verification workloads.
• Proven technical leadership: mentoring, methodology influence, and cross-team execution.
• Experience collaborating across architecture, performance, compiler, system verification, and software teams.

Education Requirements

Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field (BS/MS/PhD in EE, CE, CS or related). (This posting explicitly specifies these degrees.)

About the Company

Company: SiFive

Headquarters: San Mateo, California, United States

SiFive is a pioneering company in the RISC-V ecosystem, focused on transforming the future of computing by delivering high-performance, data-intensive RISC-V solutions. Their compute platforms empower leading technology firms to innovate across various markets, including AI, machine learning, and automotive sectors. SiFive is recognized for its commitment to ongoing innovation and fostering collaboration among talented teams, impacting lives by enabling advanced chip design.