Staff Application Engineer, Physical Design

You will join Synopsys, the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products. As a Staff Application Engineer, Physical Design, you will work directly with customers building the chips that power everything from AI accelerators to automotive systems.

Your expertise lies in the RTL2GDS flow, particularly in the complex area where verification meets implementation and theory meets timing closure. You are skilled in debugging complex place-and-route issues, timing convergence challenges, congestion problems, power optimization opportunities, and physical implementation bottlenecks using Fusion Compiler.

Responsibilities

• Support customers through physical design implementation and design closure using Synopsys tools.
• Debug complex design challenges across timing, power, area, congestion, routing, and runtime optimization at advanced process nodes including 5nm and below.
• Help customers achieve implementation closure while meeting aggressive tapeout schedules and design quality requirements.
• Provide technical guidance on best practices for synthesis, place-and-route, timing closure, power optimization, and advanced implementation methodologies.
• Build and maintain automation scripts in TCL to streamline workflows and improve turnaround time for customer engagements.
• Utilize AI-powered tools and workflows to improve productivity, accelerate issue resolution, and enhance customer support effectiveness.
• Collaborate with internal R&D teams to reproduce customer issues, validate tool behavior, and feed real-world use cases back into product development.
• Present technical solutions and recommendations to senior customer engineers and design leads during critical project phases.
• Work across the full RTL-to-GDS flow, from implementation through signoff and tapeout readiness.

The Impact You Will Have

• Enable customers to achieve first-pass silicon success on high-performance chips powering AI, automotive, networking, and mobile applications.
• Improve customer productivity by helping them maximize the value of Fusion Compiler and advanced implementation methodologies.
• Reduce customer tapeout risk by identifying and resolving implementation challenges early in the design cycle.
• Influence Synopsys tool development by bringing real customer pain points and use cases directly to engineering teams.
• Accelerate customer productivity through automation, AI-assisted workflows, and best-practice methodologies that become adopted across their organizations.
• Build long-term technical relationships with leading semiconductor companies in the region, becoming their trusted advisor for implementation and design closure challenges.
• Help shape how advanced-node designs are implemented by solving problems at the edge of what today's tools and methodologies can achieve.
• Strengthen Synopsys's reputation as the partner that shows up when the hard problems need solving.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field with at least 5 years of hands-on ASIC, physical design, implementation, or CAD engineering experience.
• Direct experience with RTL-to-GDS implementation flows, including synthesis, place-and-route, timing closure, and physical design optimization.
• Strong working knowledge of Fusion Compiler, ICC2, or equivalent digital implementation tools.
• Understanding of timing, power, congestion, routing, and design closure methodologies.
• Working knowledge of Formality, PrimeTime, or related EDA tools is a strong advantage.
• Proficiency in scripting with TCL and Python to automate design tasks and improve workflow efficiency.
• Experience with advanced process nodes (7nm and below) is a strong plus, especially if you have worked through design closure challenges at those nodes.
• Demonstrated ability to leverage AI tools and automation technologies to improve engineering productivity and problem-solving effectiveness.
• Business-level English proficiency with the ability to communicate technical concepts clearly in written and spoken form.
• Willingness to engage directly with customers, including senior engineers and design managers, in both remote and onsite settings.