Staff Engineer, Architecture & Performance Research Engineer for Data Center and Agentic AI CPU

The role

You will shape the architecture and performance direction of next-generation CPU architectures. You will research RISC-V microarchitecture, develop performance models, and drive microarchitectural concepts from research to implementation.

What you will do

• Propose new architecture ideas and take ownership of microarchitectural domains
• Use AI-driven design methodologies to implement and validate architectural ideas on real silicon
• Build, extend, and validate performance models and architectural simulators
• Perform CPI/IPC analysis and identify performance bottlenecks
• Evaluate microarchitectural features using trace-driven, analytical, and cycle-accurate models
• Characterize workloads and benchmarks including SPEC, server, client, AI/ML, and agentic AI
• Translate performance analysis and modeling results into architectural direction
• Drive research leading to patents and technical publications

Required qualifications

• Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field with 8+ years of relevant experience, or PhD with 5+ years of relevant experience
• 4+ years of experience in CPU microarchitecture or performance engineering
• Experience designing RISC-V, ARM, x86 CPU cores, or GPU/NPU vector unit
• Strong understanding of out-of-order execution, branch prediction, pipelines, speculation, and cache/memory systems
• Hands-on experience with architectural simulators such as gem5
• Proficiency in C/C++ and Python
• Experience analyzing large-scale performance data and traces

Nice to have

• Experience with AI-driven or agentic design workflows
• Understanding of agentic AI workload execution patterns
• Front-end: Branch prediction and decoupled fetch
• Mid-end: RVV/SIMD, matrix/tensor engine design, and out-of-order vector execution
• Back-end: LSU/MSHR design and prefetcher design for irregular access patterns
• Experience with PPA trade-off analysis
• Experience leading and mentoring junior engineers
• Experience with CPU tapeout or silicon validation
• Experience with patents or technical publications

Benefits

• Incentive opportunities based on individual and company performance
• Medical/Dental/Vision
• 401k
• Charitable giving match
• 4+ weeks of paid time off a year, plus holidays and sick leave
• Stipend for fertility care or adoption
• Caregiver support
• Medical travel support
• On-demand apps and free confidential therapy sessions
• Onsite Café and gym
• Virtual classes

Before you apply

• Each candidate is limited to 10 applications across all open jobs within a 6-month period
• AI tools should not be used to generate or assist with submitted content or live interview responses
• By submitting an application, you agree not to disclose confidential or proprietary information belonging to a current or former employer

About the company

Samsung Semiconductor is a global leader whose technology solutions power smartphones, electric vehicles, hyperscale data centers, and IoT devices.