Formal Verification Research Scientist

Voltai Inc.; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Voltai Inc. is developing world models and agents to learn, evaluate, plan, and interact with the physical world. The team focuses on hardware, electronics systems, and semiconductors where AI can push beyond current cognitive limits.

This role advances formal verification, enabling proofs of design correctness through model checking, property verification, and equivalence analysis. Collaboration with RTL, verification, and ML teams will drive hybrid engines that verify AI-generated hardware at

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in formal methods, theorem proving, model checking, or program analysis.
• Experience with JasperGold, VC Formal, or similar formal verification tools.
• Experience with assertion-based verification (SVA).
• Experience with model checking and property decomposition.
• Experience with equivalence checking, abstraction refinement, and formal coverage.

Responsibilities

• Develop new formal verification methods to enable formal proofs of design correctness using model checking, property verification, and equivalence analysis.
• Collaborate with RTL, verification, and ML research teams to develop hybrid formal engines for AI-generated hardware at scale.
• Define formal properties, automate assertion synthesis, and build scalable verification systems.
• Prototype research ideas and evaluate them on real RTL designs with cross-team input.

Skills

Formal methods

Model checking

Assertion-based verification

JasperGold

VC Formal

Equivalence checking

Tools

JasperGold

VC Formal

SVA

Job description

About Voltai

Voltai is developing world models, and agents to learn, evaluate, plan, experiment, and interact with the physical world. We are starting out with understanding and building hardware; electronics systems and semiconductors where AI can design and create beyond human cognitive limits.

About the Team

Backed by Silicon Valley’s top investors, Stanford University, and CEOs/Presidents of Google, AMD, Broadcom, Marvell, etc. We are a team of previous Stanford professors, SAIL researchers, Olympiad medalists (IPhO, IOI, etc.), CTOs of Synopsys & GlobalFoundries, Head of Sales & CRO of Cadence, former US Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor, and Senior Foreign-Policy Advisor to four US presidents.

About this Role

In this role, you’ll develop new formal verification methods to enable formal proofs of design correctness using model checking, property verification, and equivalence analysis. You’ll collaborate closely with RTL, verification, and ML research teams to develop hybrid formal engines that reason about AI-generated hardware at scale. You’ll define formal properties, automate assertion synthesis, and build systems that verify at the speed of thought. You will prototype research ideas, evaluate them on real RTL designs, and work closely with RTL, ML, and verification teams to turn novel methods into practical systems.

You might thrive if you have 5+ years of experience in

• Research experience in formal methods, theorem proving, model checking, or program analysis
• JasperGold, VC Formal, or similar formal verification tools
• Assertion-based verification (SVA)
• Model checking and property decomposition
• Equivalence checking, abstraction refinement, and formal coverage