Lead Verification Engineer
Lead
Description
At Cadence, we hire and develop leaders and innovators who want to make an impact on the world of technology.
Job Description: AI Design Validation Specialist (Verification / Workflow SME)
Role Overview
We are seeking an experienced AI EDA Specialist (Verification / Workflow SME) to bridge the gap between semiconductor verification methodologies and AI-driven automation. This role will serve as the domain expert responsible for validating AI-generated verification artifacts, debugging customer verification challenges, developing ground-truth datasets, and ensuring AI solutions align with industry-standard verification workflows.
The ideal candidate combines deep expertise in SystemVerilog, UVM, simulation, and formal verification with a passion for enabling next-generation AI-powered engineering solutions.
Key Responsibilities
Verification Workflow Validation
- Validate AI-generated outputs across RTL verification workflows.
- Review and assessment generated:
- UVM testbenches
- Assertions (SVA)
- Coverage strategies
- Simulation and formal verification flows
- Ensure compliance with industry-standard verification methodologies and best practices.
Customer Technical Support & Debugging
- Investigate and resolve customer-reported issues involving:
- UVM environments
- RTL verification testbenches
- Functional coverage
- Assertion failures
- Simulation regressions
- Reproduce, analyze, and document root causes of complex verification problems.
- Partner closely with customers, application engineers, and product teams to drive issue resolution.
Ground Truth & Benchmark Development
- Develop and maintain benchmark verification datasets and golden reference test cases.
- Establish correctness criteria for evaluating AI-generated verification artifacts.
- Build validation suites for model qualification and regression testing.
AI Model Enablement
- Collaborate with AI/LLM engineers to improve accuracy and verification relevance of AI-generated outputs.
- Review model responses and provide feedback for fine-tuning and evaluation.
- Translate semiconductor verification workflows into structured AI evaluation scenarios.
- Help reduce hallucinations and improve technical correctness of AI-assisted verification solutions.
EDA Workflow Integration
- Validate interoperability between AI systems and industry-standard EDA tools.
- Support workflow automation across:
- Simulation
- Regression management
- Coverage analysis
- Formal verification
- Identify opportunities to improve verification productivity through AI-assisted automation.
Required Qualifications
Education
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in:
- Electrical Engineering
- Computer Engineering
- Computer Science
- Related technical discipline
Experience
- 6–10 years of experience in semiconductor verification.
- Proven experience developing and debugging complex UVM-based verification environments.
- Hands-on experience with RTL, IP, subsystem, or SoC verification projects.
Technical Skills
Verification Expertise
- Strong knowledge of:
- SystemVerilog
- UVM
- RTL Verification
- Functional Coverage
- Code Coverage
- Assertion-Based Verification (SVA)
- Constrained Random Methodologies
Debug & Analysis
- Expertise debugging:
- Simulation failures
- Assertion violations
- Coverage gaps
- Verification regressions
- Complex multi-component testbenches
EDA Tools
Experience with one or more of the following:
- Cadence Xcelium
- Synopsys VCS
- Siemens QuestaSim
- Cadence JasperGold
- Synopsys VC Formal
- Verification management and regression platforms
Automation Skills
- Python
- Shell scripting
- TCL scripting
- Workflow automation and test framework development
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience supporting customers or field engineering organizations.
- Familiarity with AI, LLMs, or AI-assisted EDA workflows.
- Experience developing verification automation frameworks.
- Knowledge of agentic AI systems and evaluation methodologies.
- Exposure to semiconductor EDA product development or application engineering.
Key Competencies
- Deep semiconductor verification expertise.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to translate AI outputs into technically correct verification solutions.
- Excellent communication and customer interaction skills.
- Cross-functional collaboration across engineering, AI, product, and customer teams.
- Passion for driving innovation through AI-enabled verification technologies.
Success Metrics
- AI-generated verification accuracy against ground-truth benchmarks.
- Reduction in customer issue resolution time.
- Improvement in workflow validation pass rates.
- Reduction in AI-generated verification errors and hallucinations.
- Growth of validated benchmark datasets and test suites.
- Improved customer productivity and adoption of AI-assisted verification workflows.
Role Impact: This role serves as the semiconductor verification authority responsible for ensuring AI-generated verification outputs are technically accurate, workflow-compliant, and production-ready for deployment across customer environments.