Principal Software Engineer, Debug Tools

Ampere is a semiconductor design company for a new era, leading the future of computing with an innovative approach to CPU design focused on high-performance, energy efficient AI compute.

As a pioneer in the new frontier of energy efficient high-performance computing, Ampere is part of the Softbank Group of companies driving sustainable computing for AI, Cloud, and edge applications.

Join us at Ampere and work alongside a passionate and growing team.

As a core member of the Ampere Debug Tools team, you will be responsible for the architecture, design, and development of Debug Tools solutions for the next generation of Ampere products. This role is distinguished by deep technical ownership, architecture leadership, and cross-team influence.

The Debug Tools Team is part of the Ampere Software Team. Our mission is to develop a comprehensive debug strategy and roadmap for internal debug capabilities, as well as to develop and deploy debug solutions for all internal and external Ampere SoC users.

• Internal users include Debug Tools software users from the Virtual Platform, Emulation, Platform, Design Validation (DV), Post-Silicon Validation, Design For Test (DFT), Firmware, Operating System, Software, Performance, and Application Engineering teams.
• External users include partners, ODMs, OEMs, datacenter, edge and embedded customers.
• Debug solutions include Arm Development Studio and TRACE
  32 Power View debuggers, Arm Performance Studio, Arm Self-Hosted Trace and Debug for Linux, and utilities for invasive debug, bus trace, instruction trace, array dump, and scan dump.

• Architect, design, develop, and deploy software-based Debug Tools for custom 64-bit Armv9 SoC and other processors.
• Invent new debug tools and techniques for future products and technologies.
• Influence the architecture and design team decisions with knowledge of internal and external debug tools on Ampere SoCs.
• Contribute to software architecture and design documents, application notes, and other software product documentation.
• Develop tooling for advanced debugging techniques, such as instruction trace, bus trace, array dump, scan dump, and ATE bootstrapping.
• Develop open source JTAG and self-hosted trace and debugger software for internal and external use in debugging Ampere microprocessors.
• Develop Arm Development Studio and TRACE
  32 utilities for internal and external use in debugging Ampere microprocessors.
• Perform pre-silicon bring-up of debug software on software simulators and hardware emulation platforms.
• Collaborate with hardware design, architecture, post-silicon validation, and platform AE teams, as necessary, to resolve critical customer issues.

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or Computer Science with 8 years of related experience; or a Master’s degree with 5 years of experience, or a PhD with 3 years of experience.
• Proficiency with Arm® architecture and ecosystem, including Armv8-a/v9-a and Armv7-m processor architectures, Arm Debug Interface Architecture, Arm Core Sight™ Architecture, Arm AMBA® APB, AXI, AHB, and CHI protocols.
• Proficiency in C/C++, Python, and Bash programming.
• Experience using Arm Development Studio, TRACE
  32 Power View, and GDB debuggers.
• Experience with instruction trace, bus trace, scan dumps, array dumps, and crash capture.
• Experience with version control tools such as git, and software best practices.
• Strong analytical, debugging, and testing methodology skills.
• Proven ability to own problems and drive them to a resolution.
• Experience with system software debugging, tracing, and analysis tools, such as perf, ftrace, etc, is recommended.

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