Design Verification Engineer

Design Verification Engineers — Next-Generation AI ASICs

Cambridge or Edinburgh

An innovative fabless semiconductor start-up is developing cutting-edge AI accelerator chips designed to deliver an order-of-magnitude performance improvement while dramatically reducing power consumption.

I am seeking experienced Verification Engineers to ensure the functional correctness and robustness of complex AI accelerator designs. You will play a key role in developing advanced verification environments and driving coverage closure to achieve first-silicon success.

Key Responsibilities

• Collaborate with design and architecture teams to define and implement verification strategies for AI accelerator blocks and SoC subsystems.
• Build scalable SystemVerilog/UVM testbenches, including test plans, monitors, checkers, scoreboards, and constrained-random stimulus.
• Perform coverage-driven and assertion-based verification, analyse coverage reports, and close functional and code coverage gaps.
• Debug complex hardware–software interactions, reproduce silicon issues in simulation, and work closely with RTL, architecture, and software engineers to resolve them.
• Develop verification frameworks that scale across unit-level simulation, emulation, and post-silicon validation, incorporating high-level models and test generators.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in digital IC design verification, preferably with exposure to CPU, GPU, NPU, or AI accelerator IP.
• Strong skills in SystemVerilog, UVM, and scripting languages such as Python, C++, Perl, or TCL.
• Solid understanding of computer architecture, memory hierarchies, and standard interconnects (e.g., AMBA/AXI, NoC).
• Familiarity with formal verification, assertion-based methodologies, and low-power verification techniques is a plus.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced start-up environment, collaborating effectively across hardware and software teams.

Desirable Experience

• 5+ years of verification experience in high-performance or AI-oriented ASIC development.
• Background in AI chip design verification or accelerator verification methodologies.

This is a superb opportunity to shape next-generation AI hardware from the ground up, working with a passionate team that values innovation, technical excellence, and collaboration.

You will join as one of the first Chip Engineers within an organisation with huge funding.

On offer is a top salary! You must have UK working rights.