Software Engineer II 6 Stratus HLS AI/LLM Systems

Job Title

Software Engineer II 6 Stratus HLS AI/LLM Systems

Role Summary

Join the Stratus High Level Synthesis (HLS) engineering team in Cork to build AI-powered features and IDE tooling that integrate LLM-based agents into HLS workflows. The role combines production C++, Python, and TypeScript development with agent design and prototype evaluation.

Work closely with senior engineers, HLS domain experts and QA to deliver reliable, well-tested capabilities that improve developer productivity inside the Stratus environment.

Experience Level

Early-career / Software Engineer II. Typical experience implied by the posting: approximately 1 62 years of relevant industry experience.

Responsibilities

Primary responsibilities include developing AI agent features, core Stratus software, and IDE integrations.

• Implement LLM-based agent features for code interpretation, completion and generation within Stratus HLS.
• Design and build agentic pipelines that connect Stratus tools and APIs to provide context-aware guidance.
• Apply prompt engineering and contribute to retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines to improve relevance and accuracy.
• Author and maintain reusable Skills (slash commands) and orchestrate multi-step agent flows combining tool calls and context retrieval.
• Evaluate and prototype LLM models and frameworks (e.g., Claude, GPT-4, open-source alternatives) for HLS workflows.
• Write, review and maintain production-quality C++ code; develop unit and integration tests and resolve regression failures.
• Develop VS Code extension components in TypeScript/JavaScript to surface AI capabilities in the IDE.
• Participate in design and code reviews; collaborate with domain experts, QA and release engineering to meet quality standards.
• Instrument agent behavior and contribute to metrics for accuracy, latency and user experience; write clear engineering documentation.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and professional behaviors required to succeed in this role.

• Strong programming skills in C++ or another compiled, statically typed language; understanding of memory management and performance trade-offs.
• Proficiency in Python for scripting, automation and ML-related workflows.
• Experience working with LLM APIs, AI agent frameworks or machine learning tools through projects, internships or industry work.
• Solid understanding of data structures, algorithms and software design principles (modularity, separation of concerns, testability).
• Ability to translate specifications into implementation plans, clear interfaces and testable units.
• Collaborative communicator, receptive to feedback, and able to work in a fast-moving technical environment.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience creating Skills/slash commands for AI coding agents (Claude Code, openCode, GitHub Copilot).
• VS Code extension development, Language Server Protocol or Debug Adapter Protocol experience.
• Exposure to EDA, High Level Synthesis (HLS) or hardware design workflows; familiarity with RAG and vector databases (Chroma, Pinecone, Weaviate).
• Experience with LLM fine-tuning/instruction-tuning, Tcl scripting, cloud ML inference (AWS/GCP/Azure), or open-source contributions.

Education Requirements

Bachelor6s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or a closely related field with 2+ years of relevant industry experience; or Master6s degree in those fields with 1+ year of relevant industry experience.

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.