Forward Deployed Engineer

Normal Computing; New York (NY); On-site; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Normal Computing is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer in New York to enhance their EDA system and support customers in silicon engineering. You will work directly with clients to integrate our AI platform and adapt it to their needs. Strong problem-solving skills and proficiency in Python are essential, along with an ability to work within complex production environments.

This role offers the chance to engage deeply with semiconductor workflows and make impactful contributions to customer deployments in collaborative engineering settings.

Qualifications

• Proficient in Python and comfortable with production codebases.
• Ability to solve technical problems in complex environments.
• Experience in machine learning and semiconductor workflows is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Diagnose issues in both systems and customer environments.
• Integrate the platform with customer data and tooling.
• Post-train models on proprietary data.

Skills

Problem-solving

Python proficiency

Distributed systems knowledge

Experience with ML stack

Semiconductor verification workflows

Job description

Normal Computing | Incredible Opportunities

Normal Computing is the frontier AI lab for silicon, building a new paradigm to power human progress by reducing the cost of intelligence by 1,000x. Our AI platform for collaborative silicon engineering is deployed with the world's largest semiconductor companies, and we are building our own unconventional silicon. We work as one team across New York, San Francisco, Copenhagen, Seoul, and London being directly forward-deployed with many of our customers.

Your Role in Our Mission

The cost of taping out silicon is expensive and it is harder for companies to avoid multiple tape-outs due to the complexity of verifying silicon. Normal EDA accelerates this work as an AI platform for collaborative silicon engineering, a single source of truth across the silicon engineering lifecycle, learning continuously from the teams that use it.. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you own our EDA system inside a customer's environment. Embedded directly with our partners, you adapt our platform to their data, workflows, and design challenges, working alongside our account executive and a deployment strategist to make the deployment a success.

You thrive as a problem-solver and take pride in winning over our customers along with the rest of your team. You will be debugging distributed systems, post-training models and have some understanding of System Verilog since that is the language of our customers.

Responsibilities

• Own the problem-solving in production. Diagnose issues in our system, the model, the data, or the workflow. Work deep in both Normal's systems and the customer’s environment to resolve them, and close the loop with their engineers.
• Design and run evals against real customer workflows, validating generated artifacts against their specifications so model behavior holds up in production.
• Integrate the platform with each customer's data, design flows, and tooling, working with their production codebases and against their existing infrastructure.
• Embed with silicon design teams, translate their constraints into model and platform requirements, and carry that signal back to Normal's research, product, and platform teams to shape what gets built next.
• Post-train Normal's models on each customer's proprietary data and trajectories, and build the continual-learning loops that turn their engineers' feedback into system knowledge, so model quality compounds across the engagement.
• Make the calls on what to build, what to skip, and when to push back on a request that would compromise what ships, often ahead of any playbook. Codify what works into patterns that raise the floor for every engagement after yours.
• Work with the greater engineering team to make our tools better utilizing the valuable knowledge you have acquired in your interactions with customers.

What Makes You A Great Fit

• Great at problem-solving and tracking down issues wherever they are in the stack.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: proficient in Python, comfortable in production codebases, distributed-systems literate.
• Hands-on experience with the modern ML stack: prompt engineering, fine-tuning, evals, RAG, agentic patterns, model deployment.
• Willingness and ability to go deep on semiconductor verification workflows. You will spend significant time inside UVM testbenches, SystemVerilog codebases, and design specifications. Prior experience is a strong advantage, but what matters is whether you can build fluency fast and earn credibility with verification engineers.
• An ability to ship ML systems inside customer or production environments where model behavior had to hold up against real-world data.
• Calm in ambiguity. You make good decisions with incomplete information, and you know when to act and when to ask.
• Comfortable with travel when needed.

Bonus Points For

• Direct experience with EDA, semiconductor design flows, verification workflows (UVM, SystemVerilog, coverage-driven verification), or other formal / structured engineering domains.
• Built or led an FDE or customer-deployment function from the ground up at an earlier-stage company.
• Open-source contributions or publications in AI or ML venues.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

Normal Computing is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected status.

Accessibility Accommodations

Normal Computing is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please let us know at [e-mail].

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