Physical Design Engineer (Staff / Sr. Staff / Principal)
Velaura · Bangalore ·
- Work mode
- Onsite
- Seniority
- Principal
- Category
- Hardware
- Experience
- 8+ years
Role Overview
As a Staff/Sr. Staff/Principal Physical Design Engineer at Velaura AI, you will be responsible for driving the physical implementation and sign-off of critical blocks for next-generation AI and high-performance computing silicon. You will own complex designs from RTL to GDSII, including synthesis, floorplanning, place and route, clock tree synthesis, timing closure, extraction, physical verification, EM/IR, and final sign-off. You will work closely with architecture, RTL, DFT, verification, STA, CAD, and product engineering teams to achieve aggressive Performance, Power, and Area (PPA) targets
on advanced process technologies. This is a highly visible technical role where you will contribute to physical design methodology, optimize implementation flows, solve complex design closure challenges, and help deliver world-class silicon.
Responsibilities
● Own critical design blocks and drive them from RTL to GDSII through synthesis, floorplanning, place and route, timing closure, and sign-off.
● Implement and optimize floorplans, power plans, placement, clock tree synthesis, routing, extraction, and sign-off closure for high-performance designs.
● Drive timing convergence across multiple modes and corners while meeting aggressive frequency, power, area, and schedule goals.
● Work closely with RTL and architecture teams to understand micro-architecture and evaluate feasibility, timing, power, congestion, and area tradeoffs.
● Develop and improve physical design methodologies, implementation recipes, and automation flows to optimize PPA and improve design productivity.
● Perform logic synthesis, placement optimization, CTS, routing, timing ECOs, physical ECOs, extraction, and final sign-off activities.
● Analyze and resolve complex timing, congestion, clocking, signal integrity, power integrity, and physical verification issues.
● Perform physical verification and sign-off checks including DRC, LVS, ERC, antenna, density, metal fill, and layout quality checks.
● Drive EM/IR analysis and collaborate with power integrity teams to ensure robust power delivery and sign-off readiness.
● Work with industry-standard implementation and sign-off tools such as Synopsys Fusion Compiler, Cadence Innovus, PrimeTime, StarRC, Calibre, and Apache RedHawk.
● Create and maintain scripts using Tcl, Perl, Python, or other scripting languages to automate physical design tasks and improve flow efficiency.
● Collaborate with cross-functional teams including RTL, DFT, STA, verification, CAD, packaging, and product engineering to ensure successful silicon delivery.
● Provide technical leadership in physical design closure, methodology development, and advanced-node implementation challenges.
● Mentor engineers and help establish best practices for physical design execution, debug, automation, and sign-off quality.
Required Qualifications
● 8+ years of hands-on experience in physical design implementation and sign-off for complex semiconductor designs.
● Strong experience delivering high-performance blocks from RTL to GDSII in advanced technology nodes.
● Proven experience closing high-performance IPs such as CPU, GPU, VPU, memory controller, DDR, NoC, AI accelerators, or other compute-intensive blocks.
● Excellent understanding of synthesis, floorplanning, placement, CTS, routing, extraction, timing closure, and physical sign-off.
● Hands-on experience with physical design and sign-off tools such as Synopsys Fusion Compiler, Cadence Innovus, PrimeTime, StarRC, Calibre, and Apache RedHawk.
● Strong understanding of power planning, IR drop, electromigration, signal integrity, congestion analysis, and physical design quality checks.
● Experience debugging complex design closure issues related to timing, congestion, routing, clocks, power, and physical verification.
● Strong scripting skills in Tcl, Perl, or Python for flow automation, data analysis, and productivity improvement.
● Ability to work effectively across multiple projects and with geographically distributed teams.
● Strong analytical, problem-solving, communication, and technical leadership skills.
Preferred Qualifications
● Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, VLSI, or a related discipline.
● Strong understanding of computer architecture, high-performance design concepts, and micro-architecture tradeoffs.
● Experience working on AI accelerators, high-performance compute, networking,CPU, GPU, or memory subsystem designs.
● Experience with low-power implementation flows, UPF-based design methodologies, power domains, level shifters, isolation cells, retention strategies, and power-aware sign-off.
● Good understanding of DFT requirements and their impact on physical implementation, timing, routing, and sign-off.
● Experience developing or improving physical design methodologies, implementation recipes, and CAD automation flows.
● Track record of leading complex block-level or subsystem-level physical design execution through tapeout.
● Ability to mentor junior engineers and provide technical guidance across implementation and sign-off activities.
● Experience with sub-5nm or leading-edge technology nodes.
● Experience with high-performance AI, CPU, GPU, VPU, DDR, NoC, or memory controller designs.
● Experience with hierarchical design implementation and top-level integration.
● Knowledge of advanced clocking techniques, useful skew, clock mesh, or complex CTS methodologies.
● Familiarity with package-aware implementation, bump planning, power grid design, and chip-level integration.
● Experience with timing ECO, functional ECO, metal ECO, and late-stage designclosure.
● Exposure to silicon bring-up, correlation, production support, and post-silicon debug.
● Experience driving physical design methodology improvements and EDA automation.
● Strong technical leadership, mentoring, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
● Passion for solving hard design closure problems and delivering high-quality silicon under aggressive product schedules.
● Background in RTL-to-GDSII physical implementation; high-performance block-level and subsystem-level physical design; synthesis, floorplanning, placement, CTS, routing, and timing closure; Static Timing Analysis and
multi-corner multi-mode design closure; advanced-node physical design implementation; physical verification including DRC, LVS, ERC, antenna, density,and metal fill; power integrity, EM/IR analysis, and sign-off; low-power
implementation and power-aware design closure; physical design methodology, flow development, and automation; or cross-functional silicon development in advanced semiconductor environments.
Why Velaura?
Velaura is building next-generation compute technology for cloud, edge, and Physical AI. Our solutions will enable robots, autonomous systems, drones, and other intelligent machines to operate efficiently in the physical world.
This is an opportunity to help build foundational technology at a time when the industry is undergoing fundamental change. You will work alongside experienced leaders, architects, engineers, and operators who have delivered industry-defining products across mobile, cloud, semiconductor, and AI platforms. If you enjoy solving difficult problems, working across disciplines, and helping shape the future of Physical AI, we would love to hear from you.
Equal Employment Opportunity and Accommodations
Velaura is an Equal Opportunity Employer that is committed to inclusion and diversity. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status. We also take affirmative action to offer employment
opportunities to minorities, women, individuals with disabilities, and protected veterans.
Velaura is committed to working with qualified individuals with physical or mental disabilities. Applicants who would like to contact us regarding the accessibility of our website or who need special assistance or a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process may contact us at: [email protected]. This contact
information is for accommodation requests only. Evaluation of requests for reasonable accommodation will be determined on a case-by-case basis.