Staff Silicon Product Engineer

Waymo's Compute Team is tasked with a critical and exciting mission: We deliver the compute platform responsible for running the fully autonomous vehicle’s software stack. To achieve our mission, we architect and create high-performance custom silicon; we develop system-level compute architectures that push the boundaries of performance, power, and latency; and we collaborate closely with many other teammates to ensure we design and optimize hardware and software for maximum performance. We are a multidisciplinary team seeking curious and talented teammates to work on one of the world’s highest performance automotive compute platforms.

This role follows a hybrid work schedule and reports to the Director, Silicon. 

You will:

• Lead Custom Silicon Productization: Drive advanced ASICs and domain-specific architectures (TPU, ISP, AI/ML compute) for the Waymo Driver from first-silicon bring-up through characterization and high-volume production ramp.

• Define System-Level Test (SLT) Content & Hardware Strategy: Develop targeted test workloads, stress conditions, and pass/fail criteria and the define and architect the production screening hardware to rigorously screen marginal silicon and system interactions.

• Lead RMA & Field Failure Investigations: Drive comprehensive root-cause analysis for field returns and RMAs by correlating failure signatures with system telemetry, manufacturing history, and lab data to continuously improve ASIC reliability and close screening and validation gaps.

• Execute Hands-On Debug & Production Readiness: Perform hands-on silicon debug using lab equipment, system logs, firmware/software traces, and schematics to develop product operating limits, guard bands, binning strategies, and screening criteria based on characterization results.

• Optimize Yield & Product Health: Develop large-scale data mining and statistical analysis to identify failure signatures and yield limiters, translating hardware insights into actionable design feedback and scalable screening improvements.

• Silicon Bring-Up and Product Characterization: Partner closely with architecture, validation, platform, operations, and supplier teams to correlate lab, manufacturing, and system telemetry data, and root-cause silicon and system-level issues.

You have:

• Master’s degree or PhD  in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, or a related technical discipline.

• 10+ years of experience in product engineering, silicon bring-up, silicon characterization, yield debug, system validation, failure analysis, or productization of SoC, ASIC, or other complex semiconductor products, including hands-on experience bringing up and characterizing complex silicon products from engineering samples through production release.

• Experience defining or deploying system-level test, platform-level validation, production screening, or workload-based stress testing; Experience with yield analysis, failure signature analysis, margin analysis, guardbanding, correlation analysis, RMA analysis, or production-quality improvement.

• Experience debugging silicon or system-level failures using characterization data, system logs, lab measurements, firmware/software traces, schematics, and manufacturing data; Ability to read and interpret schematics, silicon specifications, characterization reports, system logs, and production data.

• Proficiency with Python, SQL, JMP, R, MATLAB, or equivalent tools for data analysis, automation, visualization, and debug.

We prefer:

• Experience with AI/ML accelerators, TPUs, GPUs, NPUs, ISPs, high-performance SoCs, automotive silicon, or domain-specific architectures.

• Experience debugging interactions across silicon, board, firmware, driver, operating system, workload, and application layers including with OS kernel, drivers, BIOS, firmware, boot flows, telemetry, diagnostics, or low-level software debug.

• Strong knowledge of PCIe, Ethernet, MIPI, high-speed interfaces, power delivery, clocking, reset, thermal behavior, or system performance optimization.

• Experience working with foundries, OSATs, contract manufacturers, reliability labs, and external suppliers.

• Experience applying machine learning, LLMs, RAG, agent frameworks, or advanced analytics to automate silicon characterization, yield debug, system log analysis, or production health monitoring.
  Self-motivated and results-oriented, with strong ownership of technical deliverables in a fast-paced development environment; Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical issues to cross-functional teams and leadership.

Travel requirements:

• Approximately 10% travel, Vendor sites in Taiwan, Bring-up Activities in California