Senior Physical Design Engineer, Annapurna Labs (AWS)

Job Title

Senior Physical Design Engineer, Annapurna Labs (AWS)

Role Summary

Design and optimize custom SoCs and server hardware used in AWS machine learning infrastructure (e.g., Inferentia, Trainium). Work on physical implementation, sign-off, and cross-functional integration to deliver production-quality silicon at datacenter scale.

Member of the Cloud-Scale Machine Learning Acceleration team collaborating with RTL, architecture, and systems teams to meet power, performance, area, and manufacturability targets.

Experience Level

Senior. Typically requires multiple years of ASIC physical design experience (see Requirements for specifics).

Responsibilities

Accountabilities include end-to-end physical implementation and methodology development for complex blocks and systems.

• Drive architectural feasibility studies and PPA (power-performance-area) trade-offs for physical design closure.
• Implement IO/core subsystems and blocks: synthesis, floor planning, pin/bus planning, placement and routing.
• Design and validate power and clock distribution, perform congestion and timing analysis, IR drop analysis, and physical verification.
• Execute ECO flows and sign-off activities for timing, LVS/DRC, and EM/IR.
• Develop and improve physical design methodologies and automation flows.
• Evaluate third-party IP, define physical requirements, and integrate IP into designs.
• Collaborate closely with RTL, architecture, and verification teams to ensure successful tapeout and silicon bring-up.

Requirements

Key must-have skills and technologies followed by desirable qualifications.

• Must-have: 6+ years of ASIC physical design experience covering RTL-to-GDSII (block and subsystem level) with modern process nodes (examples: 7nm, 14/16nm, 20nm, 28nm).
• Must-have: Hands-on experience with EDA tool flows (examples: Cadence, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys) for synthesis, equivalency verification, floorplanning, placement & route, timing closure, IR drop, and physical verification.
• Must-have: Strong scripting ability (Python, Perl, Bash, or PowerShell) to develop and debug flows and automation.
• Must-have: Deep understanding of sign-off activities including timing, IR/EM, and physical verification.
• Nice-to-have: Experience mentoring or leading engineers and driving physical-design best practices.
• Nice-to-have: Experience developing CAD/flow automation and formalizing synthesis/P&R/verification flows.
• Nice-to-have: Experience integrating IP (4+ years preferred), device physics knowledge, and exposure to interfaces and protocols such as DDR and PCIe.
• Nice-to-have: Experience extracting design parameters, quality-of-results (QOR) metrics, and trend analysis.

Education Requirements

Posting specifies: Bachelor of Science plus 8 years, or Master of Science plus 6 years in Electrical Engineering or Computer Science (BS + 8yrs or MS + 6yrs in EE/CS).

About the Company

Company: Amazon

Headquarters: Seattle, Washington, United States

Amazon is a global leader in e-commerce and cloud computing, committed to delivering fast, reliable services across diverse sectors. The company's innovative technologies include AWS, Kindle, and Echo, as well as developing low Earth orbit satellite networks for improved internet connectivity worldwide.