Senior Principal Embedded Software Architect
On-siteVancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Job Summary
Lead SoC co-architecture alongside digital and analog teams to balance hardware complexity, software efficiency, and customer usability during product definition. Build SystemC-based virtual platforms and develop proof-of-concept code to profile, model, and validate design choices before RTL is written. Translate complex use cases into requirements, assessing data paths and co-defining hardware accelerators to optimize software execution. Define core architecture for bootloaders, initialization sequences, microcode, and kernel drivers. Champion best-in-class hardware debuggability and observability from early silicon bring-up through field deployment. Act as the premier technical proxy for customer software teams while providing high-level mentorship across the hardware/software boundary.
Required Qualifications
- BS/MS in EE, CE, or CS
- 20+ years of system software architecture or firmware development experience
- Proven track record of operating at the highest technical levels to influence hardware design early in the silicon lifecycle
- Deep knowledge of memory hierarchies
- Knowledge of AMBA bus protocols (AXI/AHB/APB)
- Knowledge of DMA
- Knowledge of RISC-V/ARM architectures
- Hands-on experience with SystemC (TLM 2.0) for early architecture exploration
- Expert in C/C++ writing embedded software, bootloaders, and drivers
- Experience within RTOS (Zephyr) and Embedded Linux environments
- Experienced in silicon bring-up
- Ability to read RTL (Verilog/SystemVerilog) to evaluate hardware intent
- Exceptional skills in presenting complex architectural tradeoffs to hardware engineers, executives, and customer teams
- Required Travel: Yes, 10% of the time
Desired Qualifications
- Experience with hardware emulation (e.g., Palladium)
- Experience with FPGA prototyping
- Experience with pre-silicon workflows
- Experience defining debug/trace infrastructure (CoreSight, JTAG)
- Experience with performance modeling
- Knowledge of signal processing
- Knowledge of mixed-signal architectures
- Knowledge of power management
- Knowledge of DVFS
- Ability to review board schematics
- Ability to use standard lab equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers)
- Familiarity with modern DevOps for virtual platforms (CI/CD, Docker)
- Familiarity with network protocols
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