Senior RTL Engineer

Posted Yesterday
Be an Early Applicant
Santa Clara, CA, USA
In-Office
200K-300K Annually
Senior level
Artificial Intelligence • Hardware • Software • Semiconductor
The Role
Design and optimize RTL for key portions of a next-generation Physical AI SoC. Own significant blocks through microarchitectural definition, implementation, optimization, and tapeout while collaborating with architecture, software, verification, and physical design teams. Contribute to compute engines, memory subsystems, interconnects, DMA, control processors, and power-management logic. Analyze performance, power, and area tradeoffs, lead design reviews, debug complex systems, and mentor junior engineers.
Summary Generated by Built In
Role Overview
 
We are looking for a Senior RTL Engineer to help build Velaura’s next-generation Physical AI SoC. In this role, you will work closely with architects, performance modelers, software engineers, verification engineers, and physical design teams to transform innovative architectural concepts into production silicon. You will own significant portions of the design, drive microarchitectural decisions, and help deliver high-performance, power-efficient hardware that enables the next generation of intelligent physical systems.

    Responsilibities

    ● Own the design, implementation, and optimization of RTL for key portions of the Velaura SoC.

    ● Collaborate with architects to develop robust and efficient microarchitectures, and drive microarchitectural decisions within your areas of ownership.

    ● Participate in hardware/software co-design discussions spanning AI workloads, memory systems, runtime software, and system architecture.

    ● Work with software teams to define hardware interfaces, execution flows, memory hierarchies, and performance-critical interactions.

    ● Contribute to compute engines, memory subsystems, interconnect fabrics, control processors, DMA engines, power-management logic, and other core SoC infrastructure.

    ● Optimize designs for performance, power, area, scalability, and reliability.

    ● Partner closely with verification and physical design teams throughout the development cycle, and mentor junior engineers on design methodology and microarchitecture.

    ● Analyze performance bottlenecks and propose architectural and implementation improvements.

    ● Leverage modern engineering tools, including AI-assisted development workflows, to improve productivity, quality, and design exploration.

    ● Participate in and lead design reviews, contributing to a culture of technical excellence.

    Required Qualifications

    ● 8+ years (or equivalent depth) designing RTL for complex digital systems, with demonstrated ownership of significant blocks or subsystems through tapeout.

    ● Strong understanding of computer architecture, microarchitecture, and digital design fundamentals.

    ● Expert-level Verilog/SystemVerilog and modern RTL design methodologies (lint, CDC, synthesis-aware coding, low-power intent).

    ● Strong grasp of performance, power, and area tradeoffs, and experience making data-driven microarchitecture decisions.

    ● Understanding of memory systems, interconnects, caches, DMA engines, or accelerator architectures.

    ● Experience with hardware/software co-design and system-level performance optimization.

    ● Strong debugging and problem-solving skills.

    ● Ability to work effectively in — and technically lead within — a collaborative, multidisciplinary engineering environment.


    Preferred Qualifications

    ● Deep expertise in memory subsystem design: caches, coherency, memory controllers (e.g., LPDDR/DDR/HBM), on-chip SRAM organization, address translation, and memory protection.
    ● Hands-on experience designing or significantly extending DMA engines, data-movement accelerators, or similar high-bandwidth data-path logic —including descriptor-based DMA, multi-channel arbitration, QoS, and outstanding-transaction management.

    ● Working knowledge of standard interconnect and coherency protocols (e.g., AXI, CHI, ACE) and their performance implications.

    ● Experience with SMMU/IOMMU design or integration, virtualization, and DMA isolation for safety or security.

    ● Familiarity with RAS features in memory and data paths, such as ECC, poisoning, and error reporting.

    ● Experience with NoC fabrics, virtual channels, and QoS mechanisms for memory traffic.

    ● Knowledge of functional safety (e.g., ISO 26262/ASIL) as it applies to memoryand data-path design.

    ● Experience with AI, machine learning, or edge AI hardware, especially tensordata-movement patterns and tiling strategies.

    ● Familiarity with robotics, drones, autonomous vehicles, or industrial automation systems.

    ● Knowledge of low-power design techniques and power management architectures.

    ● Exposure to performance modeling, emulation, FPGA prototyping, or silicon bring-up.

    ● Experience using modern AI tools and workflows to accelerate engineering productivity.

    ● Background in CPUs and memory subsystems, GPUs, AI accelerators,networking and communications silicon, storage  and data movementarchitectures, robotics and autonomous systems, automotive and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), aerospace and defense systems, real-time and safety-critical computing, or functional safety architectures and methodologies.

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.

Skills Required

  • 8+ years or equivalent depth designing RTL for complex digital systems, including ownership of significant blocks or subsystems through tapeout
  • Strong understanding of computer architecture, microarchitecture, and digital design fundamentals
  • Expert-level Verilog/SystemVerilog and modern RTL design methodologies, including lint, CDC, synthesis-aware coding, and low-power intent
  • Experience making data-driven performance, power, and area tradeoffs and microarchitecture decisions
  • Understanding of memory systems, interconnects, caches, DMA engines, or accelerator architectures
  • Experience with hardware/software co-design and system-level performance optimization
  • Strong debugging and problem-solving skills
  • Ability to work effectively in and technically lead a collaborative, multidisciplinary engineering environment
  • Deep expertise in memory subsystem design, including caches, coherency, memory controllers, SRAM organization, address translation, and memory protection
  • Experience designing or extending DMA engines, data-movement accelerators, or high-bandwidth datapath logic
  • Working knowledge of AXI, CHI, ACE, or similar interconnect and coherency protocols
  • Experience with SMMU/IOMMU design or integration, virtualization, and DMA isolation
  • Familiarity with ECC, poisoning, error reporting, NoC fabrics, virtual channels, and QoS mechanisms
  • Knowledge of ISO 26262/ASIL and functional safety methodologies
  • Experience with AI, machine learning, or edge AI hardware and tensor data-movement patterns
  • Familiarity with robotics, drones, autonomous vehicles, or industrial automation systems
  • Knowledge of low-power design techniques and power-management architectures
  • Exposure to performance modeling, emulation, FPGA prototyping, or silicon bring-up
  • Experience using modern AI tools and workflows to accelerate engineering productivity
Am I A Good Fit?
beta
Get Personalized Job Insights.
Our AI-powered fit analysis compares your resume with a job listing so you know if your skills & experience align.

The Company
104 Employees
Year Founded: 2022

What We Do

Velaura AI develops ultra-low-power silicon and software for AI compute infrastructure, serving cloud, edge, and physical-AI applications. Its patented, energy-efficient digital-design technology and power-optimized architectures support next-generation AI accelerators, helping compute systems scale with lower energy use. Drawing on deep semiconductor expertise, the company aims to make AI computing more efficient across data centers and intelligent devices, with performance and sustainability central to its approach.

Similar Jobs

Motorola Solutions, Inc. Logo Motorola Solutions, Inc.

Design Engineer

Hardware • Security • Software • Cybersecurity
In-Office
Los Angeles, CA, USA
21000 Employees
155K-195K Annually

NVIDIA Logo NVIDIA

Integration Engineer

Artificial Intelligence • Computer Vision • Hardware • Robotics • Metaverse
Hybrid
2 Locations
21960 Employees
168K-311K Annually

Astera Labs Logo Astera Labs

Senior Software Engineer

Big Data • Information Technology
In-Office
San Jose, CA, USA
148 Employees
161K-200K Annually
In-Office
San Jose, CA, USA
2298 Employees
138K-206K Annually

Similar Companies Hiring

Unusual Machines, Inc. Thumbnail
Hardware • Robotics
Orlando, FL
190 Employees
Blee Thumbnail
Artificial Intelligence • Marketing Tech • Software
New York, New York
30 Employees
Vega Thumbnail
Artificial Intelligence • Automotive • Insurance • Transportation
US
43 Employees

Sign up now Access later

Create Free Account

Please log in or sign up to report this job.

Create Free Account