Strategic System Architect

Job Title

Strategic System Architect

Role Summary

Define SoC platform and IP architecture and translate product requirements into technical specifications. Guide low-level firmware development, verification, and system modeling to meet power, performance, and area targets while collaborating with product management and cross-functional hardware and software teams.

Experience Level

Senior (level indicated by employer). No explicit years-of-experience guidance provided.

Responsibilities

Primary responsibilities include system-level architecture, HW–SW co-design, and guiding low-level development and verification.

• Analyze and solve complex HW+SW problems, including algorithms and specific use cases.
• Define HW+SW co-architecture for new SoC products and IP platforms.
• Specify system requirements and KPIs for hardware and software together with product management.
• Define and improve system support for embedded RTOSes, particularly Zephyr OS.
• Guide and support development of low-level firmware for the SoC platform.
• Guide and support verification and testing of the SoC platform and products.
• Study and propose software optimizations to meet power, performance, and cost targets.
• Contribute to system modeling to validate HW+SW architecture proposals.

Requirements

Essential skills and attributes for success in this role.

• Proven hands-on experience bridging software and hardware; able to drive software-informed hardware decisions.
• Embedded software development experience with a strong understanding of the HW–SW boundary.
• Strong interest and experience in microcontroller-based system architecture and embedded design.
• Ability to operate in a global matrix organization and collaborate across teams.
• Fast learner with ability to adopt new technologies and domains quickly.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.
• Personal: able to hold product-level complexity in mind, spot dependencies and trade-offs, take ownership and drive progress.

Education Requirements

Master's degree in electrical system engineering, technical cybernetics, or a similar technical field (stated by the employer).

About the Company

Company: Nordic Semiconductor

Headquarters: Trondheim, Norway

Norwegian fabless semiconductor company that designs low-power wireless connectivity solutions and system-on-chips (SoCs) for IoT, including Bluetooth Low Energy, Thread, Zigbee, LTE-M/NB-IoT, Wi‑Fi, and cloud services (nRF Cloud).