Principal Product Engineer
At Cadence, we hire and develop leaders and innovators who want to make an impact on the world of technology.
Cadence is a pivotal leader in electronic design, building upon more than 30 years of computational software expertise. The company applies its underlying Intelligent System Design strategy to deliver software, hardware and IP that turn design concepts into reality.
Cadence customers are the world’s most innovative companies, delivering extraordinary electronic products from chips to boards to systems for the most dynamic market applications including consumer, hyperscale computing, 5G communications, automotive, aerospace industrial and health.
At Cadence, we hire and develop leaders and innovators who want to make an impact on the world of technology.
Job Title: Principal Product Engineer - Stratus HLS Solutions
Location: Cork, Ireland
Reports to: Engineering Group Director, Stratus HLS
Job Overview:
Cadence is seeking a Principal Product Engineer to join the Stratus High Level Synthesis (HLS) Solutions Engineering team in Cork and serve as a critical bridge between customers, field teams, and the product engineering organization. In this role, you will own customer evaluations and production adoption engagements end-to-end, translate real-world design challenges into actionable product requirement specifications, and partner closely with R&D to ensure requirements are development-ready before software development begins. This role is central to advancing Stratus HLS and supporting the adoption of AI-enabled, high-level synthesis methodologies across digital design.
Job Responsibilities:
- Drive new customer evaluations of the Cadence Stratus HLS solution from initial scoping through successful production sign-off, partnering with field application engineers and sales teams throughout the engagement.
- Resolve complex technical design issues for existing HLS customers, delivering solutions that unblock projects and strengthen long-term platform adoption.
- Provide hands-on training on HLS methodology and tool features to new and existing users, improving customer competency and self-sufficiency.
- Identify emerging customer use cases and research new HLS capabilities that would accelerate adoption of next-generation design methodologies, including AI-assisted flows.
- Author product requirement specifications that translate customer and field observations into precise, actionable requirements suitable for software development planning.
- Contribute to, review, and refine functional specifications in close collaboration with product management and R&D, ensuring every specification is development-ready before implementation begins.
- Define feature requirements that advance the Stratus HLS tool flow and design methodology, grounding recommendations in documented customer evidence.
- Manage and grow relationships with internal partners across product management, R&D, field application engineering, and solutions teams to align roadmap priorities with delivery outcomes.
- Represent the voice of the customer in internal roadmap and planning discussions, providing qualitative and quantitative evidence to prioritize high-impact investments.
- Deliver evidence-based feedback from customer evaluations and field engagements to improve product quality and reduce production risk.
Job Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related discipline required.
- Master’s degree in a related field strongly preferred.
- 5+ years of combined experience in hardware design, EDA applications engineering, product engineering, or a closely related field.
- Strong background in digital hardware design targeting ASIC or FPGA, including hands-on RTL design experience.
- Working proficiency in C++, with the ability to read, evaluate, and discuss technical design trade-offs at implementation level.
- Experience using hardware design and EDA tools in a Linux environment, including scripted flows and command-line tool operation.
- Demonstrated experience converting customer or stakeholder requirements into clear, structured product or functional specifications.
- Track record of managing technical engagements with external customers or users, driving outcomes from evaluation through production adoption.
- Ability to influence technical direction across engineering, product, and field teams through clear written and verbal communication backed by data.
Additional Skills/Preferences:
- Working knowledge of SystemC, the primary input language for Stratus HLS, is a significant advantage.
- Experience with High Level Synthesis tools or methodologies such as Stratus HLS, Catapult, Vitis HLS, or similar is highly desirable.
- Familiarity with AI-assisted hardware design flows or experience integrating AI tools into a hardware design context.
- Prior experience supporting EDA tools in a field or solutions engineering capacity.
- Exposure to requirements management processes or tools such as JIRA, Confluence, or internal specification review workflows.
- Experience mentoring junior engineers or leading knowledge-sharing sessions such as training workshops or technical deep-dives.
- Familiarity with Tcl scripting for EDA tool automation.
Additional Information:
The Stratus Solutions Engineering team is a small, high-impact group that sits at the intersection of product, field, and engineering. This role works closely with Field Application Engineers, Account Managers, Product Management, R&D Software Engineers, Solutions and Specialist Engineers across the Cadence Digital & Signoff Group, and broader Cadence AI platform teams. The role is based in Cadence’s Cork, Ireland office and uses tools and systems including C++, SystemC, Tcl, Python, Stratus HLS, JasperGold, Genus, Innovus, JIRA, Confluence, Git, SVN, and Perforce.
Check what we can offer you:
- Competitive salary
- 25 days holiday per year
- Private Medical and Dental plans, Income Protection and Life Insurance
- Group Personal Pension Plan
- Cycle to work scheme and gym subsidy
- 5 days paid time to volunteer to give back to our communities
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan
- The opportunity to work for a Great Place to Work© & Fortune 100 organization
Cadence is committed to equal employment opportunity and employment equity throughout all levels of the organization. We strive to attract a qualified and diverse candidate pool and encourage diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Travel: Up to 15% travel expected, primarily for customer site visits and engagements at key accounts in Europe, with occasional travel to Cadence engineering and sales offices.