Chip & Silicon Engineer
Chip & Silicon Engineers at AI companies work across the chip-design lifecycle for AI accelerators and supporting silicon—from RTL and microarchitecture through physical design, verification, and post-silicon validation. The role spans front-end design (architecting blocks, writing RTL, running simulation), physical design (synthesis, place-and-route, timing closure, power-performance-area optimization), and post-silicon work (bring-up, characterization, debug across hardware, firmware, and software layers). Specialization within this slug varies—some engineers focus narrowly on one phase of the pipeline, others coordinate across phases—but the population spans the full chain rather than concentrating on any single stage. These engineers typically sit within silicon, hardware, or platform engineering organizations at chip-focused AI companies, collaborating closely with verification, software, and systems teams to deliver production silicon.
Measured across 68 of 68 open postings.
This role is advertised at 3 levels, so a single figure for the role would describe none of them. Experience and pay are the midpoints for each level on its own.
| Level | Share | Median years | Median pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mid | 22%(15) | — | — |
| Senior | 37%(25) | 8 | — |
| Staff / Principal | 34%(23) | 8 | — |
A dash means too few postings stated it to report a midpoint. Most companies do not publish a salary band, so pay is indicative rather than a market rate. 1 level with fewer than 10 open postings is not shown.
“pair that flow with AI tooling, ours and the industry's, to make each iteration faster than the last”
“Build and share AI-assisted approaches to the code-like parts of your domain, and help the team learn what Claude can genuinely accelerate”
Requirements are a share of every open posting, so a role missing from this list is one where almost nobody asks. Work mode is different: many postings never say, so that figure counts only the ones that do. A posting stops being advertised when it is filled, cancelled or reorganised, so read the last figure as how long these stay on the market, not as time to hire.
Skills
What companies are looking for in this role.
Silicon and SoC design
Hardware test and validation
Hardware bring-up and debug
Systems performance optimization
Infrastructure automation and IaC
Hardware and embedded systems
Design for manufacturability
Reliability and failure analysis
Distributed systems architecture
Technical program management
Technical issue diagnosis
Research experiment design
Model architecture design
Thermal and structural analysis
Test automation and instrumentation
Cross-functional collaboration
Technical team leadership and mentoring
Mentoring and code review
Technical documentation
Technology
The tools and technologies that define this role.
Open Jobs
68 open Chip & Silicon Engineer jobs across 11 companies.
Other Physical Systems roles
Engineers designing and building electronic hardware, electrical systems, power electronics and signal chains. Covers circuit design, PCB layout, power delivery, RF/antenna design and signal integrity.
Engineers writing software that runs directly on hardware — firmware, embedded systems, RTOS, device drivers, microcontroller programming, and board support packages.
Engineers building physical robotic systems — manipulation, locomotion, motion planning, controls, perception for physical interaction, and autonomous navigation. Covers the full robotics stack from hardware integration through control software. Distinguished from Simulation Engineer (research_science) which builds virtual environments for training AI.
Engineers ensuring the safety of physical systems through functional safety analysis, hazard assessment, system safety engineering, and verification & validation of safety-critical systems.
Technicians who install, cable, commission, and maintain hardware in data center environments. Covers structured cabling, hardware rack-and-stack, field deployment, and physical network infrastructure.