Design Verification Lead, AI Hardware

Tenstorrent; Toronto; On-site; CAD 137,005 - 685,025; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Highly competitive compensation package

Benefits

Job summary

Tenstorrent is seeking a Verification Lead for its next-generation AI hardware in Toronto, CA. The role involves leading a team of Verification Engineers and defining strategies to validate the functionality and performance of AI cores. The ideal candidate will have over 10 years of ASIC/SoC verification experience, leadership skills, and expertise in AI-specific data types. Compensation ranges from $100K to $500K, influenced by experience and skills, accompanied by a competitive benefits package.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of ASIC/SoC verification experience.
• At least 3+ years in a leadership role.
• Proven track record in verifying complex AI/ML hardware architectures.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor the verification team.
• Develop and implement verification plans for AI cores.
• Collaborate closely with architecture and design teams.

Skills

AI-specific data types

Leadership

NoC verification

UVM

SystemVerilog

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering or related field

Tools

cocotb

C/C++

Job description

Tenstorrent is leading the industry on cutting‑edge AI technology, revolutionizing performance expectations, ease of use, and cost efficiency. With AI redefining the computing paradigm, solutions must evolve to unify innovations in software models, compilers, platforms, networking, and semiconductors. Our diverse team of technologists have developed a high performance RISC‑V CPU from scratch, and share a passion for AI and a deep desire to build the best AI platform possible. We value collaboration, curiosity, and a commitment to solving hard problems. We are growing our team and looking for contributors of all seniorities.

We are seeking a Verification Lead for our next‑generation AI hardware. You’ll guide a top‑tier team of Verification Engineers, shaping test strategies to validate functionality and performance of our AI core. This role requires expertise in AI‑specific data types, common AI data‑movement compute patterns, and on‑chip network validation, combined with strong leadership and collaboration skills.

We welcome candidates at various experience levels for this role. During the interview process, candidates will be assessed for the appropriate level, and offers will align with that level, which may differ from the one in this posting.

This role is hybrid based out of Austin TX; Toronto, CA; or Belgrade, Serbia.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor the verification team, defining strategies that address both AI compute challenges and data‑flow requirements.
• Develop and implement verification plans for AI cores and on‑chip networks, incorporating multi‑core synchronization, concurrency controls, and robust error‑injection mechanisms to ensure system resilience.
• Collaborate closely with architecture, design, and software teams to align verification efforts with system‑level requirements and evolving AI workloads.
• Architect and oversee the implementation of testbenches, test cases, and coverage models (functional, code, assertion‑based), driving coverage closure for AI computations, transformations, and mixed‑precision data types (BF16, FP8, INT8, etc.).
• Validate throughput/bandwidth of various AI workloads, debugging bottlenecks to ensure performance and accuracy objectives are met.
• Verify NoC functionality under high‑demand traffic, including congestion testing and performance benchmarking, while ensuring functionally correct handling of distributed data‑movement strategies.
• Develop platform agnostic test strategies to enable reuse across subsystems, FPGA, SoC, and silicon.
• Analyze test results, track coverage metrics, debug failures, and ensure adherence to performance benchmarks and bandwidth targets.
• Review and approve verification deliverables, ensuring comprehensive coverage, sign‑off criteria, and compliance with project timelines and tape‑out requirements.
• Adopt emerging AI/ML verification techniques, integrating advanced tools, automation frameworks, and industry best practices.

Experience & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of ASIC/SoC verification experience, with at least 3+ years in a leadership role.
• Proven track record in verifying complex AI/ML hardware architectures or high‑performance compute cores.
• Deep expertise in AI‑specific data types, tensor operations, and memory access patterns (e.g., BF16, FP8, INT8).
• Hands‑on experience with NoC verification, including congestion testing, bandwidth analysis, and performance benchmarking.
• Proficiency in UVM, SystemVerilog, cocotb, and industry‑standard verification tools; C/C++ proficiency beneficial.
• Experience with emulation platforms, performance models, and coverage‑driven verification methodologies.
• Strong communication and leadership skills, with a history of cross‑functional collaboration and guiding teams to successful tape‑outs.

Compensation for all engineers at Tenstorrent ranges from $100k - $500k including base and variable compensation targets. Experience, skills, education, background and location all impact the actual offer made.

Tenstorrent offers a highly competitive compensation package and benefits, and we are an equal opportunity employer.

Due to U.S. Export Control laws and regulations, Tenstorrent is required to ensure compliance with licensing regulations when transferring technology to nationals of certain countries that have been licensing conditions set by the U.S. government.

Our engineering positions and certain engineering support positions require access to information, systems, or technologies that are subject to U.S. Export Control laws and regulations, please note that citizenship/permanent residency, asylee and refugee information and/or documentation will be required and considered as Tenstorrent moves through the employment process.

If a U.S. export license is required, employment will not begin until a license with acceptable conditions is granted by the U.S. government. If a U.S. export license with acceptable conditions is not granted by the U.S. government, then the offer of employment will be rescinded.