Principal PD Methodology Engineer – Flow Automation

Astera Labs; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 185,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Astera Labs seeks a Principal Physical Design Engineer-Methodology to define, develop, and maintain reusable physical design flows and automation infrastructure. You will own the RTL-to-GDSII flow and coordinate across Cadence and Synopsys toolchains to improve PPA and schedule predictability.

This on-site role is based in San Jose, CA, with responsibilities spanning multi-vendor environments. You will lead automation and scale initiatives, build QoR tracking, and collaborate with IT to optimize

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical or Computer Engineering or related field.
• 8+ years of experience in physical design methodology, CAD, or flow development for complex SoCs at advanced nodes (7nm and below).
• Expert-level scripting in Python, Tcl, or Perl for flow development and automation.
• Experience building and maintaining multi-corner/multi-mode analysis infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Define, develop, and maintain reusable physical design flows and automation infrastructure across multi-vendor toolchains.
• Own end-to-end RTL-to-GDSII flow infrastructure and improve PPA and schedule predictability.
• Establish best practices, runset standards, and quality checks for multiple tapeout programs; support flow configurations and documentation.

Skills

Python

Tcl

Perl

Flow development

SoC design

Synthesis/Place-and-Route

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical/Computer Engineering

Master's degree preferred

Tools

Cadence tools (Innovus/Tempus/Voltus/Pegasus)

Synopsys tools (Fusion Compiler/PrimeTime/StarRC/ICC2)

Job description

Astera Labs seeks a Principal Physical Design Engineer-Methodology to define, develop, and maintain reusable physical design flows and automation infrastructure. You will own the RTL-to-GDSII flow and coordinate across Cadence and Synopsys toolchains to improve PPA and schedule predictability.

This on-site role is based in San Jose, CA, with responsibilities spanning multi-vendor environments. You will lead automation and scale initiatives, build QoR tracking, and collaborate with IT to optimize