Senior Applications Architect — RTL-to-GDS

Job Title

Senior Applications Architect — RTL-to-GDS

Role Summary

As a senior technical leader in the Applications Engineering team, you will lead customer engagements and provide hands-on technical guidance across RTL-to-GDS implementation flows. The role focuses on driving customer success, improving design outcomes at advanced process nodes, and influencing methodology adoption.

You will work directly with strategic accounts, account teams, and cross-functional partners to accelerate tapeouts and expand product footprint.

Experience Level

Senior — 20+ years of experience in EDA and semiconductor design and implementation preferred.

Responsibilities

The core responsibilities include technical leadership, customer engagement, benchmarking, and mentoring.

• Lead customer engagements, benchmarks, and evaluations to drive adoption, increase usage share, and grow revenue.
• Serve as the primary technical interface for key accounts; align Synopsys solutions to customer needs and business objectives.
• Coordinate engagement logistics, run regular sync meetings, and provide clear status updates to stakeholders.
• Partner with Account Executives on account strategy and opportunity development.
• Mentor and guide junior application engineers and AEs to strengthen team performance.
• Provide hands-on support across RTL-to-GDS flows: synthesis, physical implementation (place & route), and signoff.
• Troubleshoot complex design and flow issues; lead debugging and performance/PPA optimization efforts.
• Influence customer design methodologies and promote automation and AI-driven design flows where appropriate.

Requirements

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

• 20+ years of experience in EDA / semiconductor design and implementation.
• Hands-on expertise across RTL-to-GDS: synthesis, physical implementation (place & route), and signoff (physical verification, extraction, static timing analysis).
• Strong skills in timing closure and PPA optimization for advanced process nodes.
• Proven debugging and scripting skills (e.g., Tcl, Python) to diagnose and resolve complex flow issues.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to engage both technical and executive stakeholders.
• Nice-to-have: Experience with Fusion Compiler; knowledge of formal verification and DFT; familiarity with AI/ML applications or AI agents in design flows; prior customer-facing or pre-sales engineering experience; demonstrated success driving benchmarks and production tapeouts; experience working in cross-functional global teams.

Education Requirements

Not specified.

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.