Principal Application Engineer - FPGA

We Are

Synopsys is the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products. We deliver industry-leading silicon design, IP, simulation and analysis solutions, and design services. We partner closely with our customers across a wide range of industries to maximize their R&D capability and productivity, powering innovation today that ignites the ingenuity of tomorrow.

You Are

You have spent years deep in the hardware verification trenches, debugging FPGA prototypes at 2 a.m. and untangling partitioning nightmares that should have been caught three months earlier. Walking into a customer meeting, you listen before you pitch. You map their design bottlenecks, their timeline pressure, the tools that burned them last time, and you shape your technical approach around what will actually get them unstuck and moving forward.

You know where customers hit the wall with emulation and prototyping: partitioning strategies that collapse under real SoC complexity, clock domain issues that surface only at bring-up, debug flows that devour weeks of schedule. That knowledge is your edge. You use it to de-risk their evaluation, accelerate their proof-of-concept, and build the technical case that moves a deal from "interesting" to "approved."

You are comfortable translating RTL-level complexity into business value a VP can act on, and you are just as comfortable sitting with an engineer for three hours working through a synthesis issue. At Synopsys, you will work on emulation and FPGA prototyping platforms that matter, ZS5, ZeBu-200, HAPS, and the customers you support are building the next generation of AI accelerators, GPUs, and SoCs that will ship in millions of devices.

What You'll Be Doing

• Lead pre-sales technical engagements for ZS5, ZeBu-200, and HAPS FPGA prototyping platforms, working directly with prospective customers to understand their SoC, GPU, and AI design validation challenges
• Present tailored hardware assisted verification solutions that address customer-specific needs around partitioning, performance, debug, and integration with their existing design and verification flows
• Conduct technical evaluations, proof-of-concept projects, and benchmarks that demonstrate how Synopsys platforms solve the customer's real problems, not just theoretical capabilities
• Deploy AI-based hardware assisted verification platforms at customer sites, guiding integration and proving value in their actual design environment
• Collaborate closely with the sales team to shape opportunity strategy, qualify technical fit, handle objections, and move deals through the pipeline with clear technical milestones
• Deliver compelling product demonstrations, technical presentations, and architecture reviews to engineering teams and executive stakeholders, translating complexity into clarity
• Build and maintain trusted advisor relationships with customer architects and engineering leaders that extend beyond individual sales cycles and create long-term partnership opportunities

The Impact You Will Have

• Your technical credibility and solution design will directly win competitive deals, growing ZS5, ZeBu-200, and HAPS revenue and expanding Synopsys footprint in strategic accounts
• Proof-of-concept work you lead will de-risk customer decisions and shorten sales cycles by proving value early and clearly, turning "maybe next quarter" into signed orders
• Solutions you architect will set customers up for long-term success, reducing post-sale friction and creating expansion opportunities as their design complexity grows
• Customer insights you bring back from the field will shape product roadmap priorities and help R&D build features that win in competitive evaluations
• Relationships you establish with key technical buyers will open doors for the sales team and create multi-year partnership opportunities that compound over time
• Technical content and competitive positioning you develop will strengthen the entire field team's ability to sell emulation and prototyping platforms effectively
• Your ability to translate complex prototyping challenges into clear business value will elevate how customers perceive Synopsys technical leadership and differentiation

What You'll Need

• Bachelor's or Master's in Electronics Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field
• 12-15 years of hands-on experience in emulation, FPGA-based prototyping, ASIC design, or SoC validation, with deep understanding of RTL-to-hardware workflows and the design challenges that surface at bring-up
• Strong command of FPGA architectures such as Xilinx or Intel, RTL design in Verilog or VHDL, synthesis flows, and hardware bring-up and debug techniques
• Experience with ZS5, ZeBu, HAPS platforms, or ProtoCompiler is highly desirable and will accelerate your impact in customer engagements
• Comfort with travel to customer sites for evaluations, presentations, and technical engagements, sometimes on short notice to support active opportunities

Who You Are

• You can walk into a first meeting with a prospective customer, ask three good questions, and leave with a clear picture of what they need to see in order to move forward
• When a customer raises a technical objection or competitive comparison, you address it directly with specifics: real data, real tradeoffs, no deflection or vague promises
• You work seamlessly with sales. You understand their goals, you communicate pipeline status clearly, and you help them shape deals without waiting to be asked
• You present technical content in a way that lands with different audiences, whether you are walking an engineer through a partitioning flow or explaining prototype ROI to a program manager
• You stay organized across multiple active opportunities, managing evaluations, follow-ups, and deliverables without letting anything fall through the cracks
• You care about winning, but you care just as much about winning the right way, setting up customers for success so they come back and expand

The Team You'll Be Part Of

Your recruiter will share more about the team structure and mission during the interview process.

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