Physical Design Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineering

OpenAI
San Francisco
Workplace: HybridFull timeUSD 260,000 - 302,000 annuallyFunction: Design (Product/UX/UI/Visual)Experience: 7+ yearsSkills: ["Communication","Collaboration","Mentorship","Technical advisory","Customer-facing delivery"]

Serve as the physical design SME for semiconductor customer deployments, translating backend workflows and physical design constraints into clear solution hypotheses. Advise technical leaders on AI-assisted physical design across floorplanning, place-and-route, clocking, timing closure, congestion, power, verification, and signoff. Build prototypes, guide evaluation datasets and success criteria, and progressively expand into broader forward-deployed ownership and delivery.

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FursaFursa
OpenAI
OpenAI
3 months ago

Physical Design Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineering

āœ“ Verified Job

Canonical indexed version, validated from employer's careers page.

Source: Company careers pageValidated by: Fursa AI
Last checked: 4 hours agoStatus: Live

Job Summary

Serve as the physical design SME for semiconductor customer deployments, translating backend workflows and physical design constraints into clear solution hypotheses. Advise technical leaders on AI-assisted physical design across floorplanning, place-and-route, clocking, timing closure, congestion, power, verification, and signoff. Build prototypes, guide evaluation datasets and success criteria, and progressively expand into broader forward-deployed ownership and delivery.
Location: San Francisco
Workplace: Hybrid
Employment Type: Full time
Job Function: Design (Product/UX/UI/Visual)
Seniority: Mid level

Key Responsibilities

  • ā€¢Serve as the physical design SME for semiconductor customer engagements, helping FDE teams understand backend implementation workflows, constraints, and opportunities.
  • ā€¢Partner during customer discovery and scoping to translate pain points into solution hypotheses, success criteria, and technical plans.
  • ā€¢Support customer-facing technical conversations as a trusted advisor and guide AI-assisted solutions across physical design workflows (floorplanning through signoff).
  • ā€¢Guide feasibility and integration decisions across the chip design lifecycle and help curate evaluation datasets, golden tasks, rubrics, and acceptance criteria for physical design use cases.
  • ā€¢Build or guide prototypes, benchmarks, methodology experiments, and internal tools; educate and mentor the broader FDE team on physical design concepts, tooling, and trade-offs.

Pay and Benefits

Salary: USD 260,000 - 302,000 annually
Equity and Bonus:Equity

Key Requirements

  • ā€¢BS with 7+ years, MS with 5+ years, or equivalent experience in physical design, physical implementation, or backend signoff for complex ASIC or SoC programs.
  • ā€¢Experience bringing complex designs through tapeout, including floorplanning, place and route, CTS, timing closure, power analysis, physical verification, and signoff.
  • ā€¢Deep familiarity with industry-standard EDA tools and flows for synthesis, PNR, STA, physical verification, equivalence checking, and power analysis.
  • ā€¢Strong understanding of how physical design intersects with microarchitecture, RTL, verification, design methodology, libraries/PDKs, and system-level PPA trade-offs.
  • ā€¢Strong scripting/automation skills in Python, Tcl, or similar.
Experience:7+ yearsSemiconductorASICSoCChip designEDA
Skills:CommunicationCollaborationMentorshipTechnical advisoryCustomer-facing delivery
Tech Stack:Physical designFloorplanningPlace and routeClockingTiming closureCongestionPower analysisPhysical verificationSignoffSynthesisPNRSTAEquivalence checkingPythonTclCTS

Company Brief

OpenAI
Develops and deploys advanced generative AI models (including ChatGPT and DALLĀ·E) and AI infrastructure, providing APIs and consumer products to accelerate safe AGI for broad benefit.
Industry: AI & Machine Learning
Company Size: Enterprise (1,001+ employees)
Revenue: USD 1B+
Growth: Scaleup
Valuation: Hectocorn (USD 100B+)
Funding: Series E+
Headquarters: San Francisco, United States
Founded: 2015
Glassdoor
Glassdoor: 4.4
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