SoC HW (Digital, Analog or PnP) Validation Engineer
MicrosoftJob Title
SoC HW (Digital, Analog or PnP) Validation Engineer
Role Summary
Join Microsoft's Compute Silicon & Manufacturing Engineering (CSME) post-silicon validation team to validate custom SoC designs for cloud infrastructure. The role focuses on post-silicon validation in functional, electrical, or power/performance domains, delivering debug tools, test content, and validation methodology to enable large-scale cloud hardware deployment.
Experience Level
Mid-level. Typical experience guidance: Master's +1 year, Bachelor's +2 years, or equivalent practical experience.
Responsibilities
Primary responsibilities include:
- Own post-silicon validation for functional, electrical, or power/performance domains.
- Define, design, and implement silicon debug tools, test environments, and validation methodologies.
- Develop validation strategy, requirements, test plans, automation, and test content for bare-metal and OS environments.
- Execute post-silicon tests, triage failures, and perform hardware/software debug.
- Collaborate with architects, logic designers, verification engineers, firmware/software teams, and vendors to improve design and validation approaches.
- Provide technical guidance and mentorship to other engineers and contribute to pre-silicon verification where applicable.
- Drive continuous improvement to reduce defects and improve validation efficiency and coverage.
Requirements
Must-have qualifications and clearances:
- Hands-on post-silicon validation or verification experience on CPU/SoC or IP development teams.
- Experience creating test content, automation, and tools; proficiency in scripting or programming (Python, C/C++ preferred).
- Proven hardware/software debug skills using on-chip debug features (trace, JTAG) and lab equipment (protocol analyzers, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes).
- Familiarity with SoC subsystems such as cores, cache/coherency, fabric/mesh, PCIe/IO, memory controllers, and power management.
- Experience running silicon content on pre-silicon platforms (emulation, FPGA) and working with crash/register dump tooling.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills; ability to coach and mentor team members.
- Must be able to pass Microsoft Cloud Background Check and meet export-control screening requirements; successful candidates must provide citizenship or residency documentation when required.
Nice-to-have:
- Experience with power and performance validation, synthetic SoC content development, or advanced automation/tooling for validation workflows.
- Understanding of system-level software and firmware interactions with silicon.
Education Requirements
Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field plus 1+ year technical engineering experience; or Bachelor's degree in those fields plus 2+ years technical engineering experience; Doctorate or equivalent experience also listed as preferred. Equivalent practical experience accepted where noted.
About the Company
Company: Microsoft
Headquarters: Redmond, Washington, United States
Microsoft is a global technology company that develops and sells software, services, devices, and solutions. Known for its Windows operating system, Office suite, and Azure cloud platform, Microsoft aims to empower individuals and organizations around the world to achieve more. The company fosters a culture of innovation and inclusion, focusing on delivering trusted experiences to customers and partners globally.
