Principal Post-Silicon Validation Engineer
About this role
The era of pervasive AI has arrived. In this era, organizations will use generative AI to unlock hidden value in their data, accelerate processes, reduce costs, drive efficiency and innovation to fundamentally transform their businesses and operations at scale.
SambaNova Suite™ is the first full-stack, generative AI platform, from chip to model, optimized for enterprise and government organizations. Powered by the intelligent SN40L chip, the SambaNova Suite is a fully integrated platform, delivered on-premises or in the cloud, combined with state-of-the-art open-source models that can be easily and securely fine-tuned using customer data for greater accuracy. Once adapted with customer data, customers retain model ownership in perpetuity, so they can turn generative AI into one of their most valuable assets.
About the team
About the role
SambaNova is seeking a Principal Engineer to own post-silicon bring-up, debug, and validation of high-speed IO and memory subsystems within the DataScale® platform. This role is central to delivering reliable, high-performance AI systems at scale.
You will lead system-level debug across silicon, board, and software layers, driving issues to root cause from first silicon through field deployment. This is a hands-on role for an engineer with deep expertise in high-speed interfaces and hardware debug, who can operate in ambiguity and execute with high ownership.
Responsibilities
Some of your responsibilities will include:
- Own post-silicon bring-up and validation of high-speed IO and memory subsystems, spanning characterization, functional validation, stress testing, and performance analysis
- Establish power-on readiness ahead of first silicon, including debug infrastructure, tooling, and contingency planning
- Lead system-level debug to root cause complex issues spanning silicon, board, and software layers
- Drive resolution with design, firmware, verification, and system teams to close issues and keep bring-up on schedule
- Partner with system and customer engineering teams on product validation, deployment, and RMA debug
- Own validation sign-off for product release against stability, performance, and field reliability targets
- Review SoC and board design and SI/PI analysis through a post-silicon debug and deployment lens
- Contribute to pre-silicon verification and emulation to improve bring-up efficiency and coverage
- Build scripts and tooling that automate validation, debug, and data analysis, and scale test coverage across systems
- Advance post-silicon validation methodology and debug infrastructure across programs
Required Qualifications
- M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field
- 7+ years of experience in post-silicon validation or system bring-up
- Experience with two or more high-speed IO or memory protocols such as PCIe, Ethernet, HBM, CXL, or UCIe
- Proven ability to lead cross-functional debug efforts to root cause and closure
- Strong analytical skills for test development and data analysis
- Proficiency in scripting such as Python and bash
- Clear and effective communicator with a proactive, collaborative approach to problem-solving
Preferred Qualifications
- Deep understanding of high-speed SerDes training and adaptation
- Experience with mixed-signal IO design and validation
- Hands-on lab experience with oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers, and BERTs
- Experience with optical interconnect
- Ability to read and debug C/C++
Base Salary Range:
Submission Guidelines
Please note that in order to be considered an applicant for any position at SambaNova Systems, you must submit an application form for each position for which you believe you are qualified.
EEO Policy
SambaNova Systems is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard basis of age (40 and over), color, disability, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, national origin/ancestry, race, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding), sexual orientation, and any other applicable status protected by federal, state, or local laws.
Benefits Summary for US-Based, Full-Time Employment Positions
SambaNova offers a competitive total rewards package, including the base salary, plus equity and benefits. We cover 95% premium coverage for employee medical insurance, and 77% premium coverage for dependents and offer a Health Savings Account (HSA) with employer contribution. We also offer Dental, Vision, Short/Long term Disability, Basic Life, Voluntary Life, and AD&D insurance plans in addition to Flexible Spending Account (FSA) options like Health Care, Limited Purpose, and Dependent Care. Our library of well-being benefits available to you and your dependents includes a full subscription to Headspace, Gympass+ membership with access to physical gyms, One Medical membership, counseling services with an Employee Assistance Program, and much more.
Company at a glance
Welcome to SambaNova: Revolutionizing AI Capacity
At SambaNova, we're empowering developers, enterprises, governments, and data centers to unlock their full AI potential. Our full-stack infrastructure, from chips to models, enables lightning-fast performance, low power consumption, and high-efficiency computing.
Our Mission
To give every developer, enterprise, government and data center absolute sovereignty over their own data, models and AI infrastructure – to future-proof the AI workloads that will power and scale tomorrow.
Our Technology
We give our customers the optionality to experience SambaNova through the cloud or on-premise.
Samba Cloud delivers the fastest inferences on the largest open source models like Llama 4 and DeepSeek. Developers can get started building in minutes with our OpenAI compatible APIs. All customers start on the developer tier and when they need more capacity can scale into our enterprise tier.
SambaStack is our on-premise offering which includes the system, the platform, and foundation models. These components combine into a powerful technology stack that delivers unparalleled performance, ease of use, accuracy, data privacy, and the ability to power every use case across the world's largest organizations.
SambaManaged is a modular and ready-to-deploy AI cloud designed to deliver unmatched efficiency for data centers and cloud service providers. This solution allows organizations to quickly deploy advanced AI inference services—without the need for costly infrastructure upgrades or specialized expertise—in as little as 90 days.
At the heart of SambaNova innovation is the Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit (RDU). Purpose built for AI workloads, the RDU takes advantage of a dataflow architecture and a three-tiered memory design. The three tiers of memory enable the platform to run hundreds of models on a single node and to switch between them in microseconds. In 2023, SambaNova released its 4th generation RDU chip, the SN40L.
Top Benefits
- Medical insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- Short-term disability
- Long-term disability
- Basic life insurance
- Voluntary life insurance
- AD&D insurance
- Health savings account
- Flexible spending account
- Headspace subscription
- Gympass membership
- One medical membership
- Employee assistance program
- Equity
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