Virtual Platform R&D Engineer

Join imec’s center of excellence for hardware-software-technology co-design to architect and design the future of technology-aware compute systems.

Compute System Architecture (CSA) is a center of excellence at imec for hardware-software-technology co-design for future compute systems. We work in close collaboration with other expertise centers in imec specializing in applications, technology, circuits and design to innovate and pathfind next-generation compute system architectures across multiple domains – AI, HPC, Automotive, Space, and more. CSA has presence in 6 centers of IMEC, in Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, UK, USA and Qatar. This position is primarily for Leuven, Belgium. We are looking for a Virtual Platform R&D Engineer to develop, enable, and maintain our baseline platform across functional models, complex simulation environments, and towards RTL prototyping. This role sits at the intersection of compute system architectures, system simulation, and HW/SW engineering. 

What you will do

• Develop, maintain and stitch virtual platforms together for complex SoC architectures, enabling architectural exploration, and system validation.
• Build and integrate functional and performance models of compute, memory, interconnect and accelerators across multiple abstraction levels.
• Implement the required interfaces between simulation infrastructures and support tooling to improve productivity, scalability, and model fidelity.
• Support workload mapping and enable functional models bring-up on various execution platforms such as: QEMU, gem5, RTL, FGPA.
• Model and simulate new architectures to analyze critical trade-offs and bottlenecks.
• Contribute to project definitions and the technical scope of work (timeline, work packages, milestones, deliverables) in cooperation with senior members, if needed. 
• Supervise or assist in mentoring students when necessary.

Who you are

• You hold a Master’s or PhD in Electrical/Electronics/Computer Engineering/Science or other relevant domains with hands-on in compute system architectures. 
• You have a deep understanding of system-level design, modern compute and memory systems, and SoC components coupled with performance analysis skills.
• You have proven expertise, both as a user and as a developer, with simulation frameworks or virtual platforms, such as: QEMU, gem5 or SystemC-based models.
• You understand the boundaries of hardware and software, but you also understand how to model hardware.
• You are a hands-on engineer; you have a research-oriented mindset with an inherited curiosity in compute system architectures.
• You are proficient in C/C++, in bash and scripting (e.g. Python).
• You have experience in RISC-V-based architecture. 
• You are open-minded, and flexible in accommodating changing priorities to support business needs. 
• You are a team player, as you will be part of a dynamic and distributed team.
• You are fluent in English and you have strong communication skills, enabling effective collaboration across a multicultural team.