Lead Digital Architect for Superconducting PCL Chips

Snowcap Compute; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 230,000 - 320,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance

Medical, dental, and vision

401(k)

Job summary

Snowcap Compute is building the world's first commercial superconducting digital computer. As Digital Architect, you own the top-level chip architecture, defining system partitioning, clocking, interconnect hierarchy, I/O, and test strategy.

You will translate Josephson junction physics into architectural constraints, partnering with physics leads and handing a complete specification to the downstream RTL and verification teams.

Qualifications

• Lead or principal architect on a production digital chip program.
• Ability to reason from first-principles device physics constraints up to system-level architecture.
• Track record of writing the architecture specification — not just contributing to one.
• Deep, working understanding of clocking, interconnect, and I/O architecture at modern compute scale.
• Experience setting architectural test strategy and DFT direction.
• Comfort operating with significant ambiguity in a startup environment.

Responsibilities

• Own the top-level architecture specification for Snowcap's PCL digital chips — system partitioning, block hierarchy, and the document the rest of the team builds from.
• Define the clocking strategy for a non-CMOS logic family where conventional synchronous design assumptions do not apply.
• Design the on-chip interconnect hierarchy and I/O architecture, including the cryogenic-to-room-temperature boundary.
• Establish the chip's test strategy and test protocol at the architectural level — what is observable, what is controllable, and what gets verified where.
• Translate Josephson junction and PCL device behavior into architectural constraints and budgets.
• Drive the architecture-to-microarchitecture handoff: produce the specification, defend it, and revise it when needed.

Skills

Top-level architecture

Clocking strategy

Interconnect hierarchy

I/O architecture

DFT strategy

Non-CMOS design knowledge

Physics-to-architecture translation

Job description

Snowcap Compute is building the world's first commercial superconducting digital computer. As Digital Architect, you own the top-level chip architecture, defining system partitioning, clocking, interconnect hierarchy, I/O, and test strategy.

You will translate Josephson junction physics into architectural constraints, partnering with physics leads and handing a complete specification to the downstream RTL and verification teams.