# Physical Design Lead — Execution at Altera

- Company: Altera
- What the company does: Backed by a16z.
- Company website: https://www.altera.com
- Type: Startups
- Level: Senior
- Location: San Jose, California, United States
- Work setup: On-site
- Pay: $232K to $341K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2026-09-23
- Apply by: 2026-11-07
- Apply: https://altera.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Altera/job/San-Jose-California-United-States/Physical-Design-Lead---Execution_R03205
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/altera-physical-design-lead-execution/

## About the role

We are looking for a Physical Design Lead — Execution (Principal/Sr. Principal Engineer) to drive the day-to-day physical design execution and delivery that gets Altera's chips across the finish line. This is a senior individual-contributor role for an engineer who thrives in the trenches of block and full-chip closure — someone who can take ownership of a design's execution, hold the schedule and quality bar under pressure, and be the steady hand design teams turn to when timelines get tight.

## What they're looking for

- A strong physical design execution track record, with direct accountability for schedule and quality outcomes across blocks and full chip
- Demonstrated ability to deliver under schedule pressure without compromising quality, including experience managing critical-path recovery
- Hands-on expertise across the physical design flow — floorplanning, placement, clock-tree synthesis, routing, and timing/power closure — and how these interact with signoff
- Working command of the horizontal signoff flows that gate tapeout: timing closure (STA), EMIR, physical verification, formal equivalence, and low-power verification
- Scripting and automation proficiency (Python, Tcl, Perl, or shell) sufficient to build and debug execution tooling, not only to run it
- Experience driving execution on designs of high complexity with concurrent block teams across multiple sites