Principal Silicon Systems Engineer

Application close date:

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight!

We are seeking a highly experienced Principal Silicon Systems Engineer to join our growing Silicon Development team. In this role, you will provide senior technical leadership at the intersection of communications DSP, embedded software, custom processors, hardware accelerators, and ASIC implementation.

You will work closely with Communications Systems, Silicon Architecture, DSP/Algorithm, Firmware, RTL, and Design Verification teams to translate system and algorithm requirements into practical implementation plans across software-programmable processing and dedicated hardware acceleration.

This is a hands-on Principal-level technical role requiring broad experience across the HW/SW boundary. You will lead technical planning and implementation across DSP and embedded software teams, drive HW/SW partitioning and performance tradeoffs, define implementation interfaces and dependencies, and guide development from modeling and pre-silicon verification through silicon integration and bring-up.

Key Responsibilities:

• DSP & Embedded Systems Technical Leadership: Lead the technical implementation plan across DSP, low-level software/firmware, programmable processors, and hardware accelerators for custom communications silicon.
• HW/SW Partitioning: Work with Systems, Algorithm, and ASIC teams to determine the appropriate partitioning of communications and DSP functions between software-programmable processing and dedicated hardware acceleration based on performance, latency, power, memory, and implementation complexity.
• Implementation Planning: Translate system and algorithm requirements into clear technical workstreams, interfaces, dependencies, and implementation plans for DSP and embedded software teams.
• Processor & Accelerator Architecture: Guide the implementation and integration of DSP workloads across embedded CPUs, custom processing elements, vector/DSP execution resources, and dedicated hardware accelerators.
• Performance Modeling: Develop and use system and performance models to analyze processing load, throughput, latency, memory bandwidth, data movement, and HW/SW architecture tradeoffs.
• Modem/DSP Implementation: Work with communications and algorithm teams to ensure modem and DSP algorithms can be efficiently mapped into real-time silicon implementations.
• Embedded Software & Firmware: Provide technical guidance for low-level software and firmware interacting directly with custom silicon, processors, accelerators, memory, peripherals, and hardware control interfaces.
• HW/SW Interfaces: Define and review interfaces between embedded software, processors, accelerators, and RTL blocks, ensuring clear ownership and robust integration.
• Pre-Silicon Development: Drive early DSP and software integration using simulation, FPGA prototypes, emulation environments, and other pre-silicon platforms.
• Verification & Debug: Work closely with RTL and DV teams to develop system-level verification approaches and debug complex problems spanning software, processor architecture, accelerators, interconnects, and RTL.
• Silicon Integration & Bring-Up: Provide technical leadership during silicon bring-up and integration, including performance correlation and debugging across software and hardware boundaries.
• Technical Mentorship: Mentor engineers across DSP and embedded software, conduct technical reviews, guide difficult implementation decisions, and raise the technical bar across the team.

Basic Qualifications:

• Education: BS or MS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a closely related field.
• Experience: 12+ years of hands-on experience in ASIC/SoC, embedded systems, communications silicon, DSP, or related semiconductor development.
• HW/SW Co-Design: Deep experience working across hardware and software boundaries in complex SoCs.
• SoC Architecture: Strong understanding of processors, hardware accelerators, memory systems, interconnects, peripherals, and embedded software.
• DSP Systems: Strong understanding of DSP implementation and the mapping of signal-processing algorithms onto programmable processors and hardware accelerators.
• Performance Modeling: Experience modeling and analyzing processor performance, throughput, latency, memory bandwidth, and system bottlenecks.
• Embedded Software: Strong understanding of low-level software/firmware interacting directly with custom silicon.
• ASIC Development: Experience working with RTL, verification, and ASIC implementation teams.
• Pre-Silicon Development: Experience with simulation, FPGA prototyping, emulation, or other pre-silicon development environments.
• System Integration: Demonstrated ability to debug complex issues crossing processor, software, RTL, accelerator, and system boundaries.
• Technical Leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead technical work across multiple engineering disciplines and mentor senior engineers.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience developing cellular, wireless, satellite, or other communications SoCs.
• Experience with modem/L1 execution environments and real-time communications processing.
• Experience designing or working with custom DSP/CPU architectures.
• Experience with MIMO, beamforming, or other communications hardware accelerators.
• Experience with RTL/SystemVerilog and silicon verification.
• Experience with SoC interconnect and data-movement architectures.
• Experience with FPGA-based silicon prototyping and verification.
• Experience with processor and accelerator performance modeling.
• Experience with C/C++ and low-level embedded software.
• Experience taking complex SoCs through pre-silicon verification, integration, and silicon bring-up.
• Experience technically leading and mentoring small, highly specialized engineering teams.

Culture Statement

Don’t meet all desired requirements? Studies have shown that some people are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single desired qualification. At Blue Origin, we are dedicated to building an authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every desired qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Candidates may be subject to verification and BGS screening as per applicable law.