Senior CPU Design Engineer

Industry: Semiconductor / CPU / RISC-V

Job Summary

At 10xEngineers, we work with global semiconductor companies on processor and SoC technologies, including RISC-V-based designs. We’re looking for a Senior CPU Design Engineer to contribute to CPU and SoC development, with a focus on microarchitecture and RTL design.

You don't need to tick every box below to apply. We’re interested in engineers from adjacent technical backgrounds who have strong fundamentals, relevant hands-on experience, and the curiosity to grow into CPU design.

What you'll do

• Design and develop synthesizable RTL for CPU cores and SoC subsystems.

• Translate architectural and microarchitectural specifications into RTL implementations.

• Work on CPU components such as:

  • instruction decode and execution

  • pipeline control

  • branch prediction

  • load/store units

  • caches and memory systems

  • MMU and virtual memory

  • interrupts and related CPU subsystems

• Debug RTL and simulation issues and collaborate with verification engineers to resolve functional problems.

• Analyze and improve design characteristics such as performance, latency, throughput, and resource utilization.

• Contribute to integration of CPU subsystems with SoC interconnects and other components.

• Participate in design reviews and technical discussions around architecture and implementation.

• Develop scripts and supporting tools where needed to improve development and debugging workflows.

What we're looking for

• 2+ years of relevant experience in CPU design, RTL/SoC design, FPGA, digital design, or a closely related field.

• Strong understanding of Computer Architecture and Digital Logic Design.

• Hands-on experience with SystemVerilog or Verilog.

• Understanding of processor fundamentals such as:

  • pipelining

  • instruction execution

  • caches and memory hierarchy

  • interrupts

  • virtual memory

  • CPU datapaths and control

• Experience working with hardware specifications and translating them into implementation.

• Familiarity with on-chip interfaces such as AXI, AHB, or APB.

• Strong problem-solving and debugging skills.

• Programming or scripting experience with C, Python, Tcl, Bash, or similar languages.

Bonus Points

• Experience with RISC-V or another processor architecture such as ARM, MIPS, or x86.

• Experience with CPU subsystems such as caches, MMU, memory controllers, NoC, or multicore systems.

• Experience with VCS, Verdi, Questa, Xcelium, Verilator, or similar tools.

• FPGA prototyping or hardware emulation experience.

• Assembly programming or processor-level debugging.

• Experience working across the hardware/software boundary.

• Exposure to firmware bring-up, QEMU, GDB, or low-level debugging.

Your path into CPU design doesn't need to be linear

Our team works across hardware and software boundaries, and relevant experience can come from different paths. You may come from RTL, FPGA, embedded systems, processor architecture, or another closely related area.

You don't need to have every CPU-specific skill before joining us. If you have strong fundamentals and relevant hands-on experience, we'd still like to hear from you.