Lab-Driven Post-Silicon Hardware Validation Engineer (Hybrid)

Cisco Systems, Inc.; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 155,000 - 256,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

401(k) matching

Paid time off

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Hardware Post-Silicon Validation Engineer for our San Jose, CA team.

You will perform hands-on lab-intensive validation, drive early silicon bring-up, and own end-to-end root-cause analysis of silicon, package, and board issues in a high-speed networking context. The role emphasizes testing Ethernet MAC/PHY, PCIe/SerDes, and system-level workloads with advanced measurement equipment, while developing lab automation using Python and maintaining strict validation

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field and 4+ years of experience in post-silicon electrical validation, hardware bring-up and lab-based silicon debug.
• Experience in electronics, digital logic, signal integrity, and power integrity.
• Experience in high-speed measurement techniques (eye diagrams, BER, jitter, compliance testing).
• Experience with interfaces such as DDR5, USB 3.x, SGMII, PCIe, USB2.0, eMMC, SPI, MDIO, I2C, and UART.
• Experience with reading and reviewing schematics and layout files for complex boards.

Responsibilities

• Work on early-silicon bring-up activities from first power-on through feature enablement.
• Define, execute, and refine detailed hardware validation plans covering functionality characterization, performance, and reliability.
• Drive validation readiness, lab infrastructure setup, and test coverage strategy.
• Support power-on sequencing, reset strategy validation, clock bring-up, and strap configuration.
• Perform in-depth voltage, current, power integrity (PDN), and signal integrity analysis.
• Capture, analyze, and interpret waveforms, eye diagrams, jitter, BER, PDN measurements, power supply stability and noise.
• Independently isolate and root-cause silicon, package, board, or signal integrity issues.
• Work on validation of Ethernet MAC/PHY and high-speed interfaces such as PCIe and SerDes.
• Responsible for packet-level validation using traffic generators and protocol analyzers.
• Validate system-level behavior under real-world networking workloads.
• Advanced-level operation of oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, VNAs, protocol analyzers, BERTs, and multimeters.
• Develop and maintain lab automation using scripts and frameworks (e.g., Python).
• Plan and execute thermal testing using chambers and chillers across operating ranges.

Skills

Electronics

Signal integrity

Power integrity

High-speed measurement

Networking fundamentals

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical/Computer Engineering or related field

Master's degree in Electrical/Computer Engineering or related field

PhD in Electrical Engineering or related field

Tools

Oscilloscopes

Logic analyzers

VNAs

Protocol analyzers

BERTs and multimeters

Job description

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Hardware Post-Silicon Validation Engineer for our San Jose, CA team.

You will perform hands-on lab-intensive validation, drive early silicon bring-up, and own end-to-end root-cause analysis of silicon, package, and board issues in a high-speed networking context. The role emphasizes testing Ethernet MAC/PHY, PCIe/SerDes, and system-level workloads with advanced measurement equipment, while developing lab automation using Python and maintaining strict validation