Title: Sr Principal Engineer - Validation

Location: Hyderabad, India

Employment Type: Regular (PERM)

Work Mode: Hybrid

Job Description:

We are looking for a Sr. Principal Engineer, Validation to redefine how automotive-grade silicon quality is built, driving first-time-right silicon, eliminating customer escapes, and setting a new industry benchmark for validation excellence.

Key Responsibilities:

- Define and own the end-to-end silicon validation strategy for automotive and HPC SoCs, from pre-silicon enablement through post-silicon production release.

- Ensure first-time-right silicon, robust validation coverage, and zero customer escapes across all assigned programs.

- Lead global validation teams responsible for silicon bring-up, characterization, and system-level validation across multiple concurrent programs.

- Establish and drive a System Use Case Validation Program, harvesting real customer/OEM and system scenarios and converting them into automated, traceable validation suites.

- Influence SoC architecture, design, and program decisions through early validation insights, risk identification, and data-backed recommendations.

- Drive shift-left validation as a measurable engineering program, increasing reuse across simulation, emulation/FPGA, and silicon to reduce late surprises.

- Own escape-prevention strategy, including robustness testing, fault scenarios, coverage models, and disciplined validation sign-off criteria.

- Build and scale high-performing validation organizations, developing strong technical leadership (Staff/Principal pipeline) and execution ownership.

- Lead automation, standardization, and infrastructure modernization across validation labs, board farms, and CI systems.

- Establish validation methodologies, quality benchmarks, metrics, and dashboards aligned with company standards and automotive expectations.

- Identify technical, execution, and program risks early; drive data-driven mitigation and executive decision-making.

- Provide clear executive-level reporting on validation status, risks, readiness, and outcomes.

- Act as a trusted partner to Design, DV, Test, Firmware, Software, Product Engineering, Quality, and BU leadership.

- Adoption of industry best practices as a measurable program.

Required Skills & Experience:

- B.E./B. Tech or M.E./M. Tech in Electronics, Electrical, or Computer Engineering, or equivalent industry experience.

- 18+ years of experience in semiconductor validation, characterization, or silicon engineering, with demonstrated ownership of silicon quality outcomes.

- 3+ years in senior technical leadership roles.

- Strong domain expertise in automotive SoC validation, system-level use-case testing, and robustness validation.

- Proven experience delivering complex SoC programs from first silicon through production release.

- Deep understanding of silicon validation flows, lab environments, and post-silicon debug ecosystems.

- Demonstrated success building and scaling automation-first validation frameworks using Python, C++, or similar technologies.

- Strong experience driving cross-functional execution in a matrixed, global environment.

- Excellent executive communication, stakeholder management, and decision-making skills.

- Experience with AI frameworks for SoC Validation efficiency and quality gain (e.g., validation specific AI agents, Cody AI for content development).

Preferred:

- Experience with ISO 26262 / ASIL-D development and validation environments.

- Exposure to emulation/FPGA-based shift-left validation and pre-post silicon continuity models.

- Strong foundation in mixed-signal and digital silicon validation, including pattern-based and system-level methodologies.

- Track record of institutionalizing industry best practices across multiple programs and organizations.

- Experience leading culture change toward proactive risk ownership, evidence-based closure, and challenge-ready execution.

- Automotive OEM or Tier-1 customer engagement experience.

Role: Verification Team Lead

Industry Type: Electronic Components / Semiconductors

Department: Engineering - Hardware & Networks

Employment Type: Full Time, Permanent

Role Category: Hardware

Education:

- UG: B.Tech / B.E. in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE), Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE), Electronics And Computer Engineering, Electronics And Instrumentation Engineering, Electronics.

Key Skills:

- Semiconductor Industry, Validation Testing, SOC Verification, Automotive, C++, Technical Leadership, Python.