Principal Silicon Design Methodology Engineer

Microsoft Silicon, Cloud Hardware, and Infrastructure Engineering (SCHIE) is the team behind Microsoft’s expanding Cloud Infrastructure and responsible for powering Microsoft’s “Intelligent Cloud” mission. SCHIE delivers the core infrastructure and foundational technologies for Microsoft's over 200 online businesses including Bing, MSN, Office 365, Xbox Live, Teams, OneDrive, and the Microsoft Azure platform globally with our server and data center infrastructure, security and compliance, operations, globalization, and manageability solutions. Our focus is on smart growth, high efficiency, and delivering trusted experience to customers and partners worldwide, and we are looking for passionate engineers to help achieve that mission. 

As Microsoft's cloud business continues to grow the ability to deploy new offerings and hardware infrastructure on time, high volume with high quality and lowest cost is of paramount importance. To achieve this goal, the Front-End CAD team is instrumental in defining and delivering operational measures of success for hardware manufacturing, improving the planning process, quality, delivery, scale and sustainability related to Microsoft cloud hardware. We are looking for engineers with a dedicated passion for customer focused solutions, insight and industry knowledge to envision and implement future technical solutions that will manage and optimize the Cloud infrastructure.  

 We are looking for a Silicon Design Methodology Engineer to join the FE CAD team. 

#SCHIE 

• Own one or more libraries’ design/qualification end to end — specification, RTL/behavioral modeling, verification, static qualifications and release — you’re expected to be accountable for the library IP’s design quality across all consuming silicon projects.
• Drive front-end qualification of library IPs through Lint, CDC, RDC, synthesis and low-power checks, and drive them to clean, reproducible, multi-project releases for concurrent silicon programs.
• Build and maintain qualification and regression pipelines for library, triage failures, root cause and drive them to closure. 

• Act as the front-line technical owner for partner-reported issues against library IP: root cause failures and integration issues in partner environments, reproduce against standalone libraries, and deliver fixes with a predictable turnaround.
• Partner with SoC design, DV, methodology, physical design and EDA vendor teams to align library behavior, qualification criteria and release readiness; drive resolution of cross-team technical issues. 

• Provide functional leadership to a team of front-end CAD engineers: set technical direction, review designs and PRs, mentor engineers, and improve backlog, sprint and release hygiene. 

• Communicate status, risk and release readiness clearly to engineering leadership and partner stakeholders across time zones and demonstrate growth mindset. 

Required Qualifications: 

• BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience. 

• At least 6 years of experience in front-end digital design and development. 

• At least 2 years of experience taking IP through front-end qualification—including lint, clock-domain crossing (CDC), reset-domain crossing (RDC), synthesis, and low-power checks—and release. 

• Understanding of standard cells mapping, memories, and behavioral design modeling. 

• Ability to analyze the functionality and connectivity of existing IP and implement incremental design improvements. 

• Hands-on experience with IP design simulation and debugging workflows. 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• MS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science or equivalent work experience.    

• 6+ years of relevant experience.    

• End-to-end ownership of shared design/verification libraries and multi-project consumption. 

• Knowledge of the front-end VLSI design lifecycle, with demonstrated contributions to design methodology improvements. 

• Experience developing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines for design and verification workflows. 

• Experience applying AI-assisted techniques to improve design and verification of productivity. 

• Demonstrated technical leadership and mentoring skills. 

Other Requirements: 
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.