Physical Design Methodology & Flow Engineer
SambaNova Systems · San Jose, California, United States ·
- Employment
- Full time
- Category
- Design
- Experience
- 5+ years
- Company size
- 501-1000
- Salary
- USD 180,000 – 255,000 / year
Designs and maintains the RTL-to-GDS physical design flow for AI accelerator chips using Cadence tools, scripting, and advanced 3nm+ process rules.
SambaNova is a leader in next-generation AI infrastructure, delivering a full-stack inference platform for customers worldwide. At the core of SambaNova's technology is the RDU (Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit) — a chip built on a dataflow architecture rather than the traditional GPU model. Its decode performance is especially strong for agentic workloads like multi-turn agents, code generation, and long-running applications. RDUs are packaged into SambaRack, rack-scale hardware that lets customers deploy state-of-the-art models with better performance, greater energy efficiency, and faster time to value.
About the roel
SambaNova Systems is looking for a talented and motivated Physical design flow owner/lead to help us build state of the art RDU chips for machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain physical composition flow utilizing Cadence tool sets, including Genus, Innovus, Cerebrus, , etc.
- Closely work with physical designers to address a diverse range of flow and design issues.
- Collaborate with tool vendors to address tool bugs and flow enhancement.
Required Qualifications
- BS, MS, or PhD degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or Electrical Engineering
- 5+ years of industry experience in physical design and flow development
- Strong understanding of rtl to gds flow and mythologies, including synthesis and place and route;
- Proficiency in scripting languages, e.g. TCL, Perl and Python, etc. is required;
- Good understanding physical design rules especially for TSMC advanced technology nodes 3nm below;
- Familiarity with Cadence physical design reference flow and mythologies is highly desirable;
- Fluency in Claude / AI tools for flow development is a plus
Base Salary Range:
Submission Guidelines
Please note that in order to be considered an applicant for any position at SambaNova Systems, you must submit an application form for each position for which you believe you are qualified.
EEO Policy
SambaNova Systems is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard basis of age (40 and over), color, disability, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, national origin/ancestry, race, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding), sexual orientation, and any other applicable status protected by federal, state, or local laws.
Benefits Summary for US-Based, Full-Time Employment Positions
SambaNova offers a competitive total rewards package, including the base salary, plus equity and benefits. We cover 95% premium coverage for employee medical insurance, and 77% premium coverage for dependents and offer a Health Savings Account (HSA) with employer contribution. We also offer Dental, Vision, Short/Long term Disability, Basic Life, Voluntary Life, and AD&D insurance plans in addition to Flexible Spending Account (FSA) options like Health Care, Limited Purpose, and Dependent Care. Our library of well-being benefits available to you and your dependents includes a full subscription to Headspace, Gympass+ membership with access to physical gyms, One Medical membership, counseling services with an Employee Assistance Program, and much more.