FPGA Engineer

Staff FPGA Design Engineer

Why This Matters:
At Cognichip, we’re not just building AI—we’re redefining what’s possible at the nexus of silicon design and machine learning. In this role you will fuse chip design expertise with cutting‑edge machine learning to create intelligent, end‑to‑end silicon design flows.

• Serve as the domain expert, embedding chip design intuition into a team creating AI chip design assistants.
• Architect modern EDA workflows, from spec to bitstream.
• Drive the development of agentic AI systems capable of authoring syntactically and semantically correct RTL, manage IP integration, and constructing processor‑based designs.
• Create an ecosystem of libraries, tools, agents, workflows, and benchmarks to increase design velocity.
• Design and synthesize high‑quality, complex datasets (RTL, IP, constraints, failure modes) to train models on hardware physics and logic.
• Define rigorous verification standards and guide the agent in generating robust UVM test benches, assertions, and coverage models to ensure generated designs are correct‑by‑construction.

• Master’s in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a closely related field.
• 10–15 years of experience in RTL design, or a combination of design and verification.
• Deep expertise with AMD/Xilinx (Vivado, Vitis) and Altera/Intel (Quartus) ecosystems, including SoC and complex IP integrations.
• Knowledge of industry‑standard communication protocols (AXI, Ethernet, PCIe, DDR5, SPI, I2C, NoC, etc).
• Proficiency in System Verilog, Python, and TCL.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, especially to convey chip design knowledge to software engineers and AI scientists.
• Comfortable working in a dynamic, research‑heavy AI‑oriented startup environment.

• Personal projects showcasing innovation, creativity, and continuous learning.
• Knowledge of open‑source tools and contribution practices (Verilator, CocoTB, Yosys, OpenSTA, etc).
• Experience with multiple areas of chip flow (RTL design, validation, synthesis, physical design, etc).
• Demonstrated coursework or project experience in machine learning and/or deep learning.

We’re a fast‑moving AI startup with a collaborative, high‑trust culture. You’ll work with top‑tier engineers, scientists, and builders—solving hard problems that sit at the intersection of cloud computing, AI, and chip design. We value technical excellence, ownership, and the freedom to experiment.

This position is available in Toronto. We have a hybrid schedule with four days in office and one day remote.