Staff Application Engineer, Virtual Prototyping

Job Title

Staff Application Engineer, Virtual Prototyping

Role Summary

Lead customer-facing technical engagements to deploy and integrate Synopsys Virtualizer, VDKs, and Performance Analysis tools for early software development, system validation, and hardware/software integration.

Work directly with semiconductor engineering teams, sales, field engineering, and R&D to troubleshoot platforms, optimize performance, deliver training, and influence product roadmap based on deployment feedback.

Experience Level

Senior-level (Staff). See Education Requirements for explicit experience guidance.

Responsibilities

The main responsibilities include:

• Lead technical evaluations, proof-of-concepts, demonstrations, and workflow enablement tailored to customer SoC architectures.
• Deploy, configure, and integrate virtual platforms (Virtualizer, VDKs) into customer toolchains and CI/CD pipelines.
• Troubleshoot customer issues and optimize virtual platform performance, including analysis of memory subsystems and interconnects.
• Deliver technical training and workshops on virtual platform usage and performance analysis workflows.
• Partner with sales, field engineering, and R&D to define deployment strategies, scope requirements, and escalate product issues.
• Represent the company at customer sites and technical forums to drive adoption and share best practices.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and professional competencies:

• Hands-on experience with SoC software development, bring-up, integration, debug, and verification workflows.
• Proficiency in C/C++ and scripting (Python or shell) for automation and debugging tasks.
• Working knowledge of processor architectures (Arm, RISC-V) and system-level software/hardware interactions.
• Experience diagnosing performance issues related to memory subsystems, interconnects, and on-chip communication.
• Strong customer-facing skills: translate customer problems into technical plans and communicate clearly to diverse audiences.
• Ability to work independently on customer sites and coordinate across geographically distributed teams.
• Nice-to-have: familiarity with SystemC/TLM, ESL/virtual prototyping technologies, test automation, and CI/CD tools (e.g., Jenkins).

Education Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electronics Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience. The posting explicitly allows equivalent practical experience and references 3+ years in applications engineering, field engineering, or embedded software development.

About the Company

Company: Synopsys

Headquarters: Mountain View, California, USA

Synopsys is a leading company in electronic design automation (EDA) and semiconductor IP solutions. It provides tools and services for designing and verifying complex semiconductor devices and systems. The company plays a pivotal role in the semiconductor industry, helping engineers innovate and deliver higher-quality products faster. Synopsys is committed to advancing technology standards and offers a range of software and hardware solutions to its clients globally.