Senior Principal Engineer

Job Title

Senior Principal Engineer

Role Summary

Senior individual contributor responsible for CPU physical implementation enablement and translating RTL optimizations into measurable power, performance, and area (PPA) improvements across Solution Engineering, partner silicon, foundries, and EDA tools.

Works within the CPU Implementation team to set technical direction, coordinate cross-functional stakeholders, and convert tool, flow, and technology challenges into scalable capabilities that improve engineering effectiveness and silicon results.

Experience Level

Senior - requires 15+ years of semiconductor industry experience with significant focus on CPU verification and implementation.

Responsibilities

Provide technical leadership and cross-functional coordination to improve PPA outcomes from RTL through silicon.

• Align BigA RTL optimization with Solution Engineering and partner-silicon implementation; define success metrics and decision frameworks.
• Set technical engagement strategy with EDA vendors for synthesis and place-and-route to preserve or improve PPA and correlation.
• Define qualification and deployment models for tool patches, fixes, and new capabilities; balance tactical fixes with roadmap investments.
• Establish and institutionalize technology-porting practices to evaluate node readiness and maintain RTL-feedback visibility across foundries and nodes.
• Evolve implementation flows to meet non-negotiable requirements for comparable PPA, correlation, debuggability, and observability.
• Create diagnostics, observability, and governance to expose recipe changes, tool variation, and unintended PPA shifts before they affect engineering decisions.
• Translate advanced techniques (for example SDP-based methods) into reproducible collateral for Solution Engineering and partners.
• Drive runtime, automation, and engineering-efficiency improvements while preserving fit-for-purpose accuracy.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills, experience, and behaviors.

• 15+ years in the semiconductor industry with significant focus on CPU verification and implementation.
• Deep knowledge of CPU verification methodologies, verification infrastructure, automation, and front-end flows.
• Proven experience leading verification teams and large engineering initiatives; experience with global/distributed teams.
• Track record driving tooling, methodology, and flow transformations across organizations on aggressive schedules.
• Experience managing strategic technical engagements with EDA vendors; ability to set acceptance criteria and validate tool changes at scale.
• Strong stakeholder management, presentation, and communication skills; ability to influence without direct authority.
• Demonstrated ability to improve engineering efficiency while improving deliverable quality.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience applying AI/ML in semiconductor verification environments.
• Expertise in modern DevOps methodologies and scalable engineering infrastructure.
• Experience driving enterprise-scale process standardization and aligning workflows with centralized platforms.

Education Requirements

BS or MS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field (explicitly listed in the posting).

About the Company

Company: Arm

Headquarters: Cambridge, United Kingdom

ARM is a global leader in semiconductor and software design, driving innovation in computing technology. The company specializes in designing processors and systems that provide the essential building blocks for electronic devices. ARM's architecture is widely used in smartphones, servers, and IoT devices, and its collaborative culture fosters bold thinking, diversity, and high-impact benefits for its talented workforce.