Sr. Director of Hardware Systems Engineering
Mission:
Lead the Hardware Systems Engineering team; to include responsibility for product roadmap, vendor selection, manufacturing and design houses; ensuring quality and delivery of all technologies on schedule.
Responsibilities & opportunities in this role:
- Strategic Leadership: Define and own the hardware systems engineering roadmap, strategy, and execution for our AI inference platform, with a deep focus on SoC integration and system-level performance.
- System & SoC Architecture: Lead the architectural definition and trade-off analysis for complex hardware systems, with a strong emphasis on the interaction and integration of our custom SoC within board-level designs, server integration, and rack-scale deployments. Optimize for performance, power, cost, and reliability.
- Team Building & Management: Recruit, mentor, and lead a high-performing team of hardware systems engineers specializing in SoC integration, board design, and system validation, fostering a culture of innovation, technical excellence, and collaboration.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with silicon design (front-end and back-end), SoC, firmware, software, product management, operations, and supply chain teams to ensure holistic system design, seamless SoC integration, and successful product delivery.
- Design & Development Oversight: Provide technical leadership and oversight for all phases of hardware system development, including requirements definition, architectural design, component selection, schematic capture, PCB layout guidance, DFM/DFT, and validation, with a critical eye on SoC-centric challenges.
- High-Speed Design: Lead the design and validation of high-speed interfaces, power delivery networks, and signal integrity considerations for the SoC within the board and system context (e.g., DDR, PCIe, custom interconnects).
- Reliability & Qualification: Establish and implement robust reliability and qualification processes for all hardware components and systems, with particular attention to the SoC and its surrounding support circuitry.
- Vendor & Supplier Management: Manage relationships with key hardware component suppliers and manufacturing partners, ensuring quality, cost-effectiveness, and on-time delivery, especially for SoC-related components.
- Risk Management: Identify and mitigate technical risks throughout the hardware development lifecycle, with a focus on SoC integration challenges.
- Industry Trends: Stay abreast of the latest advancements in AI hardware, SoC architectures, interconnect technologies, and relevant industry standards, incorporating best practices into our designs.
Ideal candidates have/are:
- 12-15+ years of progressive experience across hardware systems engineering, with a proven track record of successfully bringing complex hardware systems to market,
- BS/MS/PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
- Deep expertise in several of the following areas, with strong understanding across all:
- Custom Silicon/ASIC/SoC design and integration: Expert understanding of chip-level interfaces, packaging, power delivery to SoC, thermal management for SoC, and integration challenges.
- High-speed digital design: Experience with DDR, PCIe, Ethernet, SerDes, and other high-speed interfaces critical for SoC connectivity.
- Board-level design: Strong understanding of PCB design principles, power integrity, signal integrity, EMI/EMC, specifically as it relates to robust SoC operation.
- Hardware/software co-design and debug: Proven ability to debug complex issues at the SoC/board/firmware interface.
- System validation, characterization, and root cause analysis for SoC-centric problems.Sr
Attributes of a Groqster:
- Humility - Egos are checked at the door
- Collaborative & Team Savvy - We make up the smartest person in the room, together
- Growth & Giver Mindset - Learn it all versus know it all, we share knowledge generously
- Curious & Innovative - Take a creative approach to projects, problems, and design
- Passion, Grit, & Boldness - no limit thinking, fueling informed risk taking
If this sounds like you, we’d love to hear from you!
Compensation: At Groq, a competitive base salary is part of our comprehensive compensation package, which includes equity and benefits. For this role, the base salary range is $300,000 to $380,000, determined by your skills, qualifications, experience and internal benchmarks.
