Senior SoC Digital Design Engineer, Multimedia Lab

TikTok; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 213,000 - 450,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) plan

Paid parental leave

Disability insurance

Life insurance

Wellbeing benefits

Paid holidays

Paid sick days

Paid personal time

Job summary

TikTok is seeking a video codec hardware design engineer in San Jose, CA to architect and implement SoC topologies and subsystems. You will develop RTL in Verilog/SystemVerilog and work with verification, synthesis, and power teams to optimize performance and area.

The role requires strong RTL/VLSI fundamentals, experience with EDA tools, and scripting for automation. Join a fast-growing hardware team delivering scalable video platforms.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Microelectronics, Integrated Circuits, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 3+ years of experience in digital front-end design (open to highly promising candidates with less experience).
• Mastery of Verilog/SystemVerilog and a solid foundation in digital circuits.
• Proficiency with mainstream front-end EDA tools (e.g., Spyglass, Design Compiler, PrimeTime).
• Fluent in at least one scripting language (Python, Perl, Tcl, Makefile) for workflow automation.

Responsibilities

• Architecture Design: Define the architecture of SoC top or subsystems and evaluate power, performance, and area in early design.
• RTL Implementation: Write high-quality RTL code (Verilog/SystemVerilog) and maintain design docs.
• Front-End Quality Control: Perform Lint, CDC, and RDC checks to ensure standard compliance.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work with Verification for debugging and with Backend/Mid-end teams for synthesis and timing.
• Low Power Design: Formulate chip low-power strategies, apply Clock Gating and Power Gating, support UPF flow.

Skills

Digital front-end design

Verilog/SystemVerilog

Scripting (Python/Perl/Tcl)

RTL design

Education

Bachelor's degree or higher in Microelectronics / ICs / EE

Tools

Spyglass

Design Compiler

PrimeTime

Job description

Responsibilities

About the team: Our team is building industry-leading, highly efficient, and scalable video codec hardware solutions (FPGA and ASIC) from the ground up to better serve billions of users. We are looking for strong video codec design engineers to design hardware accelerators for advanced video encoding and processing. The successful candidate will be part of a fast-growing team that includes algorithm, architecture, software, firmware, and hardware design and verification experts with a dedication to technical excellence and a passion to build large-scale and high-performing video platforms and services.

Responsibilities

• Architecture Design: Participate in defining the architecture of SoC top or subsystems (NoC/CPU/NPU/ISP/Codec), and conduct PPA (Power, Performance, Area) evaluation during the early design phase.
• RTL Implementation: Write high-quality, well-structured RTL code (Verilog/SystemVerilog) and maintain related design documentation.
• Front-End Quality Control: Perform Lint, CDC (Clock Domain Crossing), and RDC (Reset Domain Crossing) checks to ensure code standard compliance and design robustness.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with the Verification team for debugging and achieving Coverage closure; collaborate with the Backend/Mid-end teams to support Synthesis, SDC (Synopsys Design Constraints) generation, STA (Static Timing Analysis), and power optimization.
• Low Power Design: Participate in the formulation of chip low-power strategies, proficiently apply Clock Gating and Power Gating techniques, and support the UPF (Unified Power Format) flow.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Microelectronics, Integrated Circuits, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 3+ years of experience in digital front-end design (open to highly promising candidates with less experience).
• Mastery of Verilog/SystemVerilog and a solid foundation in digital circuits.
• Proficiency with mainstream front-end EDA tools (e.g., Spyglass, Design Compiler, PrimeTime).
• Fluent in at least one scripting language (Python, Perl, Tcl, Makefile) for workflow automation.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Deep understanding of NPU architecture, HW/SW co-design and AI hardware acceleration.
• Proven experience in SoC-level performance profiling and bottleneck analysis.
• Hands-on experience in the integration of complex SoC core subsystems (e.g., CPU/NPU clusters, Memory subsystems).
• Successful tape-out experience in advanced process nodes (7nm/5nm/3nm)

About TikTok

TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. TikTok's global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, and we also have offices in New York City, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.

Why Join Us

Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day.

We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.

Diversity & Inclusion

TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.

TikTok Accommodation

TikTok is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $212800 - $450000 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.

For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates: Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:

1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
3. Exercising sound judgment.