Senior VLSI Physical Design R&D Engineer (C++/Optimization)

Job Title

Senior VLSI Physical Design R&D Engineer (C++/Optimization)

Role Summary

Senior R&D engineer focused on VLSI physical-design optimization algorithms. Work on inventing new optimization engines and improving existing timing and placement/route optimization algorithms implemented in C++.

Position sits on an R&D team in Austin responsible for advancing tools and engines used in production chip physical design flows.

Experience Level

Senior — typically 6+ years of relevant industry experience (posting specifies over 6 years).

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and benchmark algorithms that improve physical design quality and runtime.

• Research and develop timing and physical optimization algorithms (placement, routing, timing optimization).
• Implement high-performance C++ code for optimization engines and integration with EDA flows.
• Profile and optimize code for scalability and runtime determinism on large designs.
• Collaborate with architects, RTL/design teams, and verification to validate algorithm impact.
• Design experiments, analyze results, and iterate on algorithm trade-offs.
• Document designs, produce technical specifications, and present findings to stakeholders.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to team technical direction.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience.

• 6+ years working on VLSI physical design algorithms or related EDA research/engineering roles.
• Strong experience writing and optimizing production-quality C++ code.
• Deep understanding of VLSI timing optimization concepts and flows (STA, timing closure strategies).
• Proven ability to design algorithms for large-scale problems and to evaluate trade-offs between quality and runtime.
• Experience profiling and performance tuning on large datasets; familiarity with parallelization and memory optimization.
• Clear technical communication and ability to collaborate across engineering teams.

Nice-to-have: prior experience with placement/routing engines, scripting for EDA flows, or exposure to machine-learning-based optimization techniques.

Education Requirements

Not specified.

About the Company

Company: NVIDIA

Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, USA

NVIDIA is a global leader in accelerated computing, renowned for its innovative solutions in AI and digital twins that transform diverse industries. The company specializes in networking technologies, providing end-to-end InfiniBand and Ethernet solutions for servers and storage that optimize performance and scalability. NVIDIA serves sectors such as high-performance computing, enterprise data centers, and cloud computing, constantly reinventing its products and services to stay ahead in the market.