Digital Design Flow Architect

NXP Semiconductors; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

NXP Semiconductors is seeking a Technical Director, Digital Design Methodology & Flow Architecture to define and deploy a repeatable RTL-to-GDS flow for advanced process technologies. You will lead architecture, automation, and AI-enabled debugging across EDA workflows.

The role requires deep hands-on experience with RTL-to-GDS, timing/power closure, formal verification, MCP integration, and cross-functional leadership to transform flows and improve productivity across teams and nodes.

Qualifications

• Deep hands-on experience in end-to-end digital implementation, RTL-to-GDS, static design and timing analysis, formal/static verification, signoff, ECO, and PPA closure.
• Ability to translate design challenges into repeatable methodology improvements and reusable automation.
• Experience defining and executing deployment and migration strategies for agentic flows.

Responsibilities

• Architect a modular RTL-to-GDS flow supporting synthesis, place and route, timing/power closure, static verification, signoff, and GDS delivery.
• Enable agentic execution, AI-assisted debugging, design-space exploration, and automated analysis loops for EDA workflows.
• Establish repeatable and traceable flow practices, including standard recipes, configuration baselines, metrics, dashboards, audit trails, regression checks, and release management.
• Deploy flows for new process technologies in partnership with design, CAD/methodology, foundry, and EDA vendor teams.
• Improve productivity, turnaround time, quality-of-results, and PPA through automation, methodology tuning, and scalable reuse.

Skills

End-to-end digital implementation

Agentic AI workflow development

Automation scripting

Cross-functional leadership

Education

B.S. in Electrical/Computer Engineering

MS/PhD preferred

Tools

Tcl scripting

Python scripting

Perl scripting

Shell scripting

JSON-RPC

MCP integration

EDA tools integration

Job description

Role Overview

The Technical Director, Digital Design Methodology & Flow Architecture will define and deploy a repeatable, traceable, and customizable end-to-end digital design flow for advanced process technologies. The role combines RTL-to-GDS implementation expertise, static verification, PPA optimization, AI tool enablement, and hands-on agentic flow development.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect a modular RTL-to-GDS flow supporting synthesis, place and route, timing/power closure, static verification, signoff, and GDS delivery.
• Enable agentic execution, AI-assisted debugging, design-space exploration, and automated analysis loops for EDA workflows.
• Establish repeatable and traceable flow practices, including standard recipes, configuration baselines, metrics, dashboards, audit trails, regression checks, and release management.
• Deploy flows for new process technologies in partnership with design, CAD/methodology, foundry, and EDA vendor teams.
• Improve productivity, turnaround time, quality-of-results, and PPA through automation, methodology tuning, and scalable reuse.

Education and Experience Level

• Education: B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field required; M.S. or Ph.D. preferred.
• Level: Director of Technology-level technical leader of digital design, CAD/methodology, EDA implementation, or flow architecture experience.
• Scope: Proven ability to set technical direction, influence senior stakeholders, and lead cross-functional flow transformation across functional domains or technology nodes.

Required Experience And Skills

• Deep hands-on experience in end-to-end digital implementation, RTL-to-GDS, static design and timing analysis, formal/static verification, signoff, ECO, and PPA closure.
• Strong expertise in synthesis, floorplanning, place and route, clock-tree synthesis, power optimization, congestion analysis, and advanced-node implementation challenges.
• Hands-on agentic AI workflow development experience, including task planning, tool invocation, result interpretation, retry logic, human-in-the-loop checkpoints, and autonomous execution patterns.
• Practical MCP experience, including MCP clients/servers, tool and resource exposure, secure access, JSON-RPC-style communication, and integration with engineering systems.
• Strong scripting and automation skills using Tcl, Python, Perl, shell, or equivalent flow automation technologies.
• Experience with major EDA ecosystems such as Synopsys, Cadence, Siemens EDA, or equivalent internal platforms.
• Ability to translate design challenges into repeatable methodology improvements, reusable automation, and measurable productivity gains.
• Experience defining and executing deployment and migration strategies from current script-driven digital design flows to goal-driven agentic flows, including phased rollout, MCP/tool-adapter integration, validation against golden flows, human-in-the-loop checkpoints, observability, governance, rollback planning, and production adoption across RTL-to-GDS workflows.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with AI-enabled EDA, agent orchestration, retrieval-augmented generation, multi-agent workflows, and workflow state management.
• Experience developing MCP-enabled connectors or tool adapters for EDA tools, job schedulers, dashboards, repositories, databases, or compute environments.
• Experience building production-quality flows with observability, auditability, permission control, evaluation harnesses, regression validation, documentation, and release management.

More information about NXP in the United States...

NXP is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer regardless of age, color, national origin, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, marital status, status as a disabled veteran and/or veteran of the Vietnam Era or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. In addition, NXP will provide reasonable accommodations for otherwise qualified disabled individuals.