Senior Principal Engineer, Hardware Application Engineering — Board & System Design
Phizenix
Apply to this job Santa Clara, CA Until 10/3/2026 15+ years exp First posted August 4, 2026 Last posted August 4, 2026
Job description
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
- 15+ years of hardware design, development, and validation experience for high-speed networking or compute systems.
- 7+ years of board and system design experience supporting high-speed platforms with 25G NRZ to 112G/224G PAM4 SerDes.
- Strong experience owning the complete board design lifecycle, including architecture, schematic design, layout guidance, board bring-up, and validation.
- Experience developing and delivering hardware reference designs for customer or internal platform adoption.
- Expertise in:
- High-speed PCB stack-up and material selection
- Power architecture for high-current ASICs (PDN, sequencing, decoupling, tolerance analysis)
- Thermal design and mechanical integration
- Signal Integrity (SI) and Power Integrity (PI)
- Hands-on experience with hardware bring-up, debugging, root-cause analysis, and lab equipment.
- Strong knowledge of high-speed interfaces including Ethernet, PCIe, DDR, and modern SerDes technologies.
- Experience with Design for Reliability (DFR), Design for Manufacturability (DFM), and Design for Testability (DFT).
- Customer-facing experience supporting technical engagements and resolving deployment issues.
- Excellent communication and technical presentation skills.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with Ethernet switch platforms and AI networking/fabric architectures.
- Experience designing platforms for hyperscale or megascale data centers.
- Knowledge of ODM/CM manufacturing, qualification, and reliability testing.
- Experience with advanced cooling technologies (liquid or immersion cooling).
- Hands-on experience with Cadence Allegro/Sigrity or Mentor/Siemens Xpedition/HyperLynx.
- Proven ability to influence product roadmaps and collaborate with cross-functional engineering teams.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead board and system hardware design for high-speed networking and AI platforms.
- Drive architecture, schematic development, PCB layout reviews, hardware validation, and board bring-up.
- Collaborate with silicon, firmware, and systems engineering teams to optimize platform performance.
- Review SI/PI analysis and support customer design reviews.
- Provide technical leadership during customer engagements and platform deployment.
- Develop technical documentation and deliver engineering training.
- Serve as the technical bridge between customers, hardware engineering, and silicon development teams
California Pay Range
$200,000—$250,000 USD
Compensation (from employer):
California Pay Range — 200,000 – 250,000 USD
About this role
Summary
Lead high-speed hardware design, validation, and customer support for networking systems.
Job title
Senior Principal Engineer, Hardware Application Engineering — Board & System Design
Experience level
15+ years
Minimum experience
15+ years exp
Industry
hardware
Location requirements
Santa Clara, CA, on-site, no remote work allowed.
Salary
$200k–$250k
Management role
No
Skills & keywords
Required skills
hardware designboard designSerDeshigh-speed interfacesPCB layoutpower architecturethermal designsignal integritylab debugging
Preferred skills
Ethernet switch platformsAI networkinghyperscale data centersODM/CM manufacturingCadence AllegroMentor Xpedition
Specializations
high-speed networkingboard designsystem designSerDespower architecture
Locations
Structured locations inferred from the posting.
Santa Clara, CA, USA
On-site City