Senior Design Verification Engineer

An exciting opportunity has just opened for a Senior / Lead Verification Engineer to join a cutting-edge team in Cambridge, UK, driving innovation in next-gen semiconductor projects

Our client is expanding their DV team at a key growth stage, offering a rare opportunity to join early and genuinely shape verification methodology, standards, and technical direction as the team scales.

Position Overview The work is focused on production-grade open-source silicon, including the Ibex RISC-V CPU and OpenTitan security platform, developed in collaboration with world-leading partners such as Google. This is real silicon used as a foundation for secure and scalable compute systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and debug block/system-level tests and testbenches using SystemVerilog and UVM
• Develop test and coverage plans for new and updated designs
• Triage and debug nightly regressions
• Review contributions to open-source projects
• Enhance test and CI infrastructure
• Collaborate on academic/industry publications
• Stay current with verification best practices and introduce improvements

Candidate Requirements

Essential:

• 5+ years industry experience in design verification
• Strong SystemVerilog and UVM expertise
• Experience across the full verification cycle (planning to tape-out)
• Able to provide estimates and coordinate with project managers
• Comfortable in multidisciplinary, multi-organisation teams
• Familiar with Git and code review tools (GitHub, GitLab, Gerrit)
• Programming in C and/or Python for tests and automation
• Undergraduate degree in a technical discipline or equivalent

Desirable:

• Experience with multiple hardware block types
• Knowledge of security countermeasures (fault injection, side-channel attacks)
• Experience with RISC-V ISA or other instruction sets
• Familiarity with formal verification tools (e.g., JasperGold)

Benefits

• 25 days annual leave + 8 bank holidays
• Employer pension contribution
• Private medical insurance, income protection, critical illness and life cover
• Opportunities to attend industry conferences and training