Principal Physical Design CAD Engineer

Role Overview

Astera Labs is establishing a strategic R&D center in Israel to drive the development of complex semiconductor chips that solve the critical 'data bottlenecks' enabling the future of AI at scale. As we expand our presence in Israel, We are looking for a Physical Design CAD Engineer with at least 3 years of hands-on experience in digital implementation flows. The ideal candidate is highly technical, curious, and eager to drive innovation by combining strong physical design knowledge with modern automation and GenAI-based methodologies.

This is a unique opportunity to take on meaningful technical ownership in a new site, implementing the parasitic extraction (PEX) methodologies and flows for chips that power the world's largest AI clusters. As a foundational member of the team, you will be responsible for the accuracy and efficiency of our extraction environment, ensuring that our high-speed designs are modeled with the highest precision from RTL to GDSII.

Key Responsibilities

The Engineer will develop, maintain, and improve CAD flows and methodologies for physical design teams, supporting advanced implementation stages from synthesis through place and route, timing closure, power optimization, and signoff readiness.

Key responsibilities include:

• Develop and support physical design CAD flows using industry-standard EDA tools
• Build automation infrastructure for implementation, analysis, reporting, and debug
• Support design teams in areas such as synthesis, floorplanning, placement, CTS, routing, timing, power, and physical verification
• Create scripts and utilities to improve productivity, quality of results, and flow robustness
• Support and enhance flows based on Synopsys Fusion Compiler
• Explore and integrate GenAI solutions to accelerate debug, automate repetitive tasks, improve reporting, and enhance engineering productivity
• Analyze tool results, logs, QoR metrics, timing reports, congestion, utilization, power, and design-rule issues

Basic Qualifications

• At least 3 years of experience in Physical Design, CAD, or implementation methodology
• Strong understanding of digital physical design concepts, including synthesis, placement, CTS, routing, timing closure, and physical verification
• Hands-on experience with Synopsys Fusion Compiler
• Experience with scripting languages such as Tcl, Python
• Ability to develop automation around EDA tools and large-scale design flows
• Good understanding of timing, power, congestion, floorplanning, and QoR analysis
• Strong debugging and problem-solving skills
• Ability to work closely with multiple engineering teams and support complex design environments
• High motivation to learn and apply GenAI technologies in semiconductor design flows.

Preferred Experience

• Experience with additional tools such as PrimeTime, StarRC, ICC2, Innovus, Voltus, RedHawk, Calibre, or similar
• Knowledge of STA, low-power design, UPF, EM/IR, extraction, or signoff flows
• Experience building dashboards, regression systems, flow checkers, or automated report analyzers
• Familiarity with LLMs, prompt engineering, AI agents, or GenAI-based coding/debug tools
• Experience with Git, CI/CD, databases, or cloud-based compute environments