# CPU Design Engineer at Altera

- Company: Altera
- What the company does: Backed by a16z.
- Company website: https://www.altera.com
- Type: Startups
- Level: Mid level
- Location: San Jose, California, United States
- Work setup: On-site
- Pay: $133K to $193K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2026-09-29
- Apply by: 2026-11-13
- Apply: https://altera.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Altera/job/San-Jose-California-United-States/CPU-Design-Engineer_R03170?utm_source=1752vc&utm_medium=careers
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/altera-cpu-design-engineer/

## About the role

We are seeking an innovative Soft CPU Design Engineer to join our IP Engineering team at our Altera Headquarters in San Jose, CA. In this specialized role, you will be responsible for the micro-architecture, RTL design, and implementation of high-performance, area-efficient Soft CPU cores. Unlike traditional ASIC design, your focus will be entirely on architecting processor pipelines that are natively optimized to leverage Altera FPGA architectures (including ALMs, embedded memory blocks, and DSP slices). Found on 1752vc Careers, the job board for startup and VC roles.

## What they're looking for

- Education: Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline
- Core Experience: 3+ years of digital design experience with a specific focus on CPU/Processor RTL design and FPGA implementation
- Languages: Advanced proficiency in SystemVerilog or Verilog for FPGA synthesis
- Architectural Knowledge: Strong understanding of processor pipeline design, hazard handling, branch prediction, and memory hierarchy (caches, tightly-coupled memories)
- FPGA Tooling: Deep hands-on proficiency with Altera Quartus Prime Pro, including advanced components like Platform Designer (Qsys), TimeQuest Timing Analyzer, and Signal Tap or similar EDA software
- In-depth familiarity with the open-source RISC-V ISA specification and custom instruction insertion


Source: 1752vc Careers, https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/altera-cpu-design-engineer/