Principal Engineer - Validation
Renesas · Posted Oct 26
Semiconductor solutions for automotive, industrial, infrastructure, and IoT industries
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About the role
Renesas is a global semiconductor company offering MCUs, SoCs, analog and power products for the automotive, industrial, infrastructure and IoT markets. The Validation organization is responsible for silicon validation strategy, bringing up and characterizing automotive and HPC SoCs from pre-silicon enablement through post-silicon production release. This Principal Engineer role defines and owns that end-to-end validation strategy, leads global validation teams, and drives automation, shift-left validation, and escape-prevention programs.
What you will do
- Define and own the end‑to‑end silicon validation strategy for automotive and HPC SoCs, from pre‑silicon enablement through post‑silicon production release.
- Ensure first‑time‑right silicon, robust validation coverage, and zero customer escapes across all assigned programs.
- Lead global validation teams responsible for silicon bring‑up, characterization, and system‑level validation across multiple concurrent programs.
- Establish and drive a System Use Case Validation Program, harvesting real customer/OEM and system scenarios and converting them into automated, traceable validation suites.
- Influence SoC architecture, design, and program decisions through early validation insights, risk identification, and data‑backed recommendations.
- Drive shift‑left validation as a measurable engineering program, increasing reuse across simulation, emulation/FPGA, and silicon to reduce late surprises.
- Own escape‑prevention strategy, including robustness testing, fault scenarios, coverage models, and disciplined validation signoff criteria.
- Build and scale high‑performing validation organizations, developing strong technical leadership (Staff/Principal pipeline) and execution ownership.
- Lead automation, standardization, and infrastructure modernization across validation labs, board farms, and CI systems.
- Establish validation methodologies, quality benchmarks, metrics, and dashboards aligned with Renesas standards and automotive expectations.
- Identify technical, execution, and program risks early; drive data‑driven mitigation and executive decision‑making.
- Provide clear executive‑level reporting on validation status, risks, readiness, and outcomes.
- Act as a trusted partner to Design, DV, Test, Firmware, Software, Product Engineering, Quality, and BU leadership.
- Adoption of industry best practices as a measurable program
Skills used in this role
What the employer is looking for
- B.E./B. Tech or M.E./M. Tech in Electronics, Electrical, or Computer Engineering, or equivalent industry experience.
- 16+ years of experience in semiconductor validation, characterization, or silicon engineering, with demonstrated ownership of silicon quality outcomes.
- Strong domain expertise in automotive SoC validation, system‑level use‑case testing, and robustness validation.
- Proven experience delivering complex SoC programs from first silicon through production release.
- Deep understanding of silicon validation flows, lab environments, and post‑silicon debug ecosystems.
- Demonstrated success building and scaling automation‑first validation frameworks using Python, C++, or similar technologies.
- Strong experience driving cross‑functional execution in a matrixed, global environment.
- Excellent executive communication, stakeholder management, and decision‑making skills.
- Experience with AI frameworks for SoC Validation efficiency and quality gain— eg validation specific AI agents, Cody AI for content development etc.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with ISO 26262 / ASIL‑D development and validation environments.
- Exposure to emulation/FPGA‑based shift‑left validation and pre↔post silicon continuity models.
- Strong foundation in mixed‑signal and digital silicon validation, including pattern‑based and system‑level methodologies.
- Track record of institutionalizing industry best practices across multiple programs and organizations.
- Experience leading culture change toward proactive risk ownership, evidence‑based closure, and challenge‑ready execution.
- Automotive OEM or Tier‑1 customer engagement experience.
Benefits and support
- Hybrid work model with the option to work remotely two days a week
- Employee Resource Groups
About Renesas
Renesas Electronics Corporation is a global semiconductor manufacturer that designs and supplies advanced embedded processors, microcontrollers, analog, power, and connectivity solutions. Serving the automotive, industrial, infrastructure, and IoT sectors, the company delivers integrated technology to support smarter and more sustainable applications worldwide.
- Industry
- Semiconductors
- Company size
- 21629 employees
- Founded
- 2002-11-01
- Location
- Tokyo, Japan
- Funding stage
- Public Company
Leadership
Representative Executive Officer, President and CEO
Shuhei Shinkai
CFO
Vivek Bhan
Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Head of Engineering
Stephen Limoges
Senior Vice President and Chief Sales Officer
Utae Nakanishi
CHRO
Recent coverage
Renesas Newsroom
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Renesas Newsroom
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Business Wire
Renesas Announces Leadership Changes to Strengthen Foundation for Growth2026-11-04
Wisevoter
Renesas Electronics America Moves Into New Austin Office to Support Growing AI and Digital Power R&D2026-11-03