Senior Firmware Verification Engineer

Renesas Electronics; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive benefits package

Collaborative team culture

Job summary

Renesas Electronics America invites a Senior Firmware Verification Engineer to join the Infrastructure Power team. You will own pre-silicon verification of embedded firmware for high-performance PMICs used in data center and AI platforms.

The role blends test strategy, simulation-based verification, and collaboration with firmware, RTL, and validation teams to ensure silicon readiness. The position emphasizes building robust test plans, developing automation, and ensuring coverage across

Qualifications

• BS or MS in Electrical/Computer Engineering or related field.
• 5+ years in firmware verification or pre-silicon verification.
• Strong understanding of embedded firmware development processes.
• Experience with ARM Cortex-M and low-level debugging.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain SystemVerilog-based simulation environments for ARM Cortex-M firmware with RTL/RTL models.
• Verify firmware behavior across reset, boot, init, configuration, sequencing, telemetry, and interfaces.
• Analyze C/assembly firmware at multiple levels to diagnose failures.
• Develop directed, randomized, negative, stress, boundary, and error-injection tests.
• Run regressions, triage failures, and isolate defects to firmware/RTL/tools.

Skills

Analytical thinking

Cross-functional collaboration

Written communication

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor's degree in EE/CS

Tools

SystemVerilog

Python

Perl

C/Assembly

ARM Cortex-M

SimVision/Verdi

QEMU/Pre-silicon emulation

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

At Renesas, we are more than just a semiconductor company; we are the engine behind a "safer, smarter, and more sustainable" future. Headquartered locally in the heart of San Jose, our Silicon Valley team is at the forefront of innovation in Automotive, Industrial, Infrastructure, and IoT technologies. By blending cutting-edge embedded processing with world‑class analog and power expertise, we develop "Winning Combinations" that power billions of intelligent devices globally. Joining our San Jose office means joining a collaborative, forward-thinking environment where your work directly impacts the next generation of AI-driven infrastructure and green energy solutions.

Job Description

Renesas Electronics America is seeking a Senior Firmware Verification Engineer to join the Infrastructure Power team. This role owns pre-silicon verification of embedded firmware used to control high-performance power management ICs for data center, AI accelerator, networking, and computing platforms. The engineer will apply a solid understanding of the firmware development process to build effective test strategies, verify ARM Cortex-M firmware in simulation-based environments, and identify firmware, RTL, and interface defects before silicon availability.

Key Responsibilities

• Build, maintain, and enhance SystemVerilog-based simulation environments that execute ARM Cortex-M firmware with the associated RTL and hardware models.
• Verify firmware behavior across reset, boot, initialization, configuration, sequencing, telemetry, protection, fault handling, recovery, and firmware–hardware interface scenarios.
• Analyze C and assembly firmware at source, instruction, register, memory, interrupt, and peripheral levels to diagnose functional and timing-related failures.
• Develop directed, constrained-random, negative, stress, boundary, and error-injection tests to validate expected behavior and robustness.
• Run regressions; triage failures; perform waveform, log, memory, and register analysis; and isolate issues to firmware, RTL, models, testbench, or tools.
• Define and track requirements coverage, functional coverage, code coverage, and regression quality; identify gaps and drive closure.
• Create automation using Python, Perl, or similar scripting languages for build and test execution, result checking, log parsing, failure classification, reporting, and continuous integration.
• Collaborate closely with firmware developers, RTL designers, architects, and validation engineers to review requirements, improve observability and controllability, reproduce defects, and verify fixes.
• Document verification plans, test procedures, coverage results, debug findings, known issues, and release-readiness assessments.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• BS or MS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• Minimum 5+ years of experience in firmware verification, embedded firmware testing, firmware development, or pre-silicon verification.
• Strong understanding of the embedded firmware development process and how requirements, architecture, implementation, integration, test, debug, and release activities connect.
• Deep understanding of C and assembly-based firmware for ARM Cortex-M processors, including exception and interrupt handling, memory maps, startup code, registers, peripherals, and low-level debugging.
• Proven firmware testing experience, including test planning, test-case design, negative and boundary testing, regression analysis, defect isolation, and coverage closure.
• Strong ability to debug firmware–hardware interactions using simulation logs, waveforms, memory and register traces, and source-level analysis.
• Proficiency in Python, Perl, or similar languages for verification automation and regression infrastructure.
• Familiarity with embedded interfaces such as I2C, PMBus, SPI, UART, or similar protocols.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, written communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience verifying PMIC firmware, digital power management, voltage regulation, sequencing, telemetry, or protection features.
• Hands-on experience developing, maintaining, or debugging SystemVerilog-based pre-silicon simulation environments.
• Experience with waveform and debug tools such as SimVision, Verdi, or similar tools.
• Working knowledge of RTL design and firmware-controlled digital subsystems.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated regression farms, test dashboards, and scalable failure-triage workflows.
• Experience improving firmware testability through assertions, monitors, scoreboards, reference models, hooks, or diagnostic instrumentation.
• Post-silicon bring-up or lab-debug experience is beneficial but is not the primary focus of this role.
• Experience with QEMU, emulation, FPGA-based prototyping, virtual platforms, or other pre-silicon execution environments.
• Exposure to UVM or other structured verification methodologies and coverage-driven verification.

Additional Information

Renesas is an embedded semiconductor solution provider driven by its Purpose, To Make Our Lives Easier. With a global team of over 21,000 engineers and problem solvers in more than 30 countries, we offer the opportunity to work on world‑leading technology for Automotive, Industrial, Infrastructure, and IoT, shaping a safer, healthier, greener, and smarter future.

At Renesas, TAGIE is our culture, grounded in being Transparent, Agile, Global, Innovative, and Entrepreneurial. It shapes how we work, grow and deliver on our purpose together. This collaborative spirit and mindset drive our semiconductor technology to transform industries and impact millions of lives.

We believe in rewarding our employees with a competitive benefits package alongside their salary. More information will be provided during the hiring process.

Are you ready to join our team and shape the future with us?

Renesas Electronics is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer, committed to supporting diversity and fostering a work environment free of discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, military status, veteran status, or any other basis protected by law. For more information, please read our Diversity & Inclusion Statement.

Renesas Electronics deals with dual-use technology that is subject to U.S. export controls regulations. Under these regulations it may be necessary for Renesas to obtain U.S. government export license prior to release of technology to certain persons. The decision whether or not to file or pursue an export license application is at the sole discretion of Renesas.