Senior Principal Design Engineer

Job Title

Senior Principal Design Engineer

Role Summary

Join the Palladium and Protium solutions team to design and develop low-level device drivers and GUI-based tooling that enable hardware bring-up, validation, and real-time debugging for advanced silicon platforms.

The role sits at the hardware–software boundary and requires close collaboration with hardware engineers to translate register maps and protocol requirements into high-performance software for customer-facing systems.

Experience Level

Senior — 10+ years of industry experience (senior-level engineering role).

Responsibilities

Primary responsibilities include software development, hardware-software integration, and tooling to support system bring-up and field debugging.

• Design, develop, and optimize device drivers for high-speed hardware interfaces (e.g., PCIe, CXL) on Linux and/or Windows.
• Build and maintain GUI-based tools for device configuration, telemetry monitoring, validation, and debugging.
• Analyze register maps and communication protocols; translate system requirements into reliable software implementations.
• Implement device enumeration, configuration handling, interrupt processing, DMA, and hardware-to-GUI control loops.
• Architect automation frameworks and test utilities to accelerate hardware bring-up and regression testing.
• Perform root-cause analysis across hardware and software layers and optimize driver behavior and protocol compliance.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and customer enablement to support product bring-up and field issue resolution.

Requirements

Must-have skills and experience:

• Production-grade programming skills in C/C++.
• Hands-on experience developing device drivers on Linux and/or Windows.
• Solid understanding of high-speed protocols such as PCIe and Ethernet.
• Proven ability to triage and debug complex system integration issues spanning hardware and software.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience in multi-language environments combining SystemVerilog, C/C++, and Python.
• Familiarity with GUI frameworks (Qt, PyQt) and Python-based automation or rapid prototyping.
• Deep Linux kernel driver and memory management experience; user-mode hardware access (VFIO, UIO, PCIe BAR mapping).
• Experience with hardware debug tools (protocol analyzers, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes) and lab bring-up.
• Exposure to applying AI/ML techniques for verification, log analysis, or tooling automation.
• Strong analytical problem-solving and ability to work independently in a dynamic team.

Education Requirements

BS degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field. This senior role expects ~10+ years of industry experience; equivalent practical experience is acceptable.

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.