Principal Product Engineer - Virtual Protocols

Job Title

Principal Product Engineer - Virtual Protocols

Role Summary

The Principal Product Engineer on the Virtual Protocols Product Engineering team drives field readiness, customer deployment, and technical enablement for Cadence's transaction-based acceleration and virtual emulation verification products (Palladium and Protium platforms).

Work closely with R&D, field engineering, and customers to define product requirements, deliver feature training, and deploy advanced protocol and virtualization solutions that accelerate system-level pre-silicon verification and validation.

Experience Level

Senior / Principal-level individual contributor focused on product readiness and customer enablement.

Responsibilities

Key responsibilities include technical leadership for virtual protocol products, customer enablement, and cross-team collaboration.

• Partner with R&D to define product features, provide feedback, and validate implementations.
• Work with field and marketing teams to demonstrate product performance and debugging capabilities.
• Engage with customers to deploy virtual emulation and prototyping solutions and capture requirements.
• Develop and deliver feature-based training and documentation for new products and features.
• Support customers using VirtualBridge solutions that integrate virtual machines and production OSes with SOC designs on emulation/prototyping platforms.
• Drive requirements and deployment for protocol engines (PCIe, CXL, Ethernet, USB, AMBA) and related APIs/methodologies.
• Optimize virtual product performance and help customers maximize hardware platform investment for validation goals.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and relevant product/field experience. Preferred skills listed separately.

• Must-have:
  • Experience in OS/kernel and driver software development (Linux drivers, kernel-level work).
  • Proficiency in C/C++ and object-oriented software development.
  • Familiarity with verification methodologies and virtual prototyping (UVM/SystemVerilog, SystemC, Portable Stimulus).
  • Practical experience with virtualization-based verification, protocol stacks, or emulation/prototyping workflows.
• Nice-to-have:
  • Experience with SOC design and verification.
  • Hardware emulation or prototyping experience (Palladium/Protium or similar).
  • HDL knowledge (SystemVerilog, VHDL) and scripting (shell, Python, Perl).
  • Familiarity with compiler/build tools (make, gcc/g++).

Education Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering plus a minimum of 7 years of related experience, or a Master's degree in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering plus a minimum of 5 years of related experience.

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.