Sr Principal Engineer - Validation

Title: Sr Principal Engineer - Validation

Location: Hyderabad, India

Employment Type: Regular (PERM)

Work Mode: Hybrid

Job Description:

**** is looking for a Sr. Principal Engineer, Validation. to redefine how automotive‑grade silicon quality is built—driving first‑time‑right silicon, eliminating customer escapes, and setting a new industry benchmark for validation excellence

 Key Responsibilities:

• 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 **** 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

Required Skills & Experience:

• B.E./B. Tech or M.E./M. Tech in Electronics, Electrical, or Computer Engineering, or equivalent industry experience.

• 18+ years of experience in semiconductor validation, characterization, or silicon engineering, with demonstrated ownership of silicon quality outcomes.

• 3+ years in senior technical leadership roles

• 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:

• 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.