Physical Design Engineer

Physical Design Engineer – AI Accelerator

An early-stage AI hardware startup in London is building a custom accelerator to support next-generation machine learning workloads. With strong funding in place, they’re growing a small, experienced team to take their chip from concept through to tape-out.

They’re looking for a Physical Design Engineer to play a key role in the implementation of high-performance silicon, working closely with RTL and architecture teams.

What you’ll be doing:

• Taking ownership of physical implementation from synthesis through to place & route
• Floorplanning, power planning, clock tree synthesis, and timing closure
• Working closely with RTL teams to ensure design for PPA
• Driving signoff activities including STA, IR drop, and DRC/LVS
• Supporting tape-out and silicon bring-up

What they’re looking for:

• Experience in ASIC physical design
• Strong understanding of place & route, timing closure, and physical verification
• Experience with industry standard EDA tools
• Good understanding of digital design and RTL interaction
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, early-stage environment

Nice to have:

• Experience working on advanced nodes
• Exposure to high-performance compute, GPUs, or AI accelerators
• Knowledge of low-power design techniques