Lead Software Engineer: AI for Hardware Verification

About this role

At Cadence, we hire and develop leaders and innovators who want to make an impact on the world of technology.
Cadence Design Systems Inc. is looking for a motivated Lead Software Engineer to work with us in San Jose, California.


At Cadence, we hire and develop leaders and innovators who want to impact the world of technology. Cadence has been nominated as a Great Place to Work globally and is also a Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For.


As a Lead Software Engineer, you will be part of the HSV Software team in the SVG group in San Jose, California.


The HSV Software team builds AI-enabled software products that support emulation and prototyping platforms, helping customers accelerate design bring-up, debug, verification, and validation workflows.


To understand more on what we do, you can visit https://www.cadence.com/en\_US/home/tools/system-design-and-verification.html.


Working at Cadence is very dynamic, fast-paced, and integrated with other teams all around the world.


Job Description

• Design and develop AI-enabled software components for emulation and prototyping workflows, balancing reliability, maintainability, security, latency, cost, and integration with existing product architecture.
• Build LLM-based agents, RAG workflows, and automation services that improve design bring-up, verification, debug, and validation while recommending product enhancements beyond defect fixes.
• Apply secure and responsible AI practices, including data protection, access control, prompt-injection awareness, safe tool use, auditability, and careful handling of sensitive design data.
• Create and execute testing, evaluation, and observability workflows for assigned AI product areas, covering regression tests, retrieval quality, model-output review, tracing, and failure analysis.
• Serve as a technical resource for peers and less-experienced engineers, collaborating with internal partners, senior individual contributors, and managers to ...