Physical Design Timing Engineer
CA$191,000 – CA$220,000 / yr base salary
Posted 4 Nov 2025
Advertised as “Sr. Staff Physical Design Timing Engineer (STA)”
BranchFactor Summary
The original posting with the fluff stripped out
- Expected experience
- 12+ yrs
- Management level
- Individual contributor
- Employment
- Hybrid
| Base salary | CA$191,000 – CA$220,000 / yr |
|---|
Lightmatter is leading the revolution in AI data center infrastructure, enabling the next giant leaps in human progress. The company invented the world’s first 3D-stacked photonics engine, Passage™, capable of connecting thousands to millions of processors at the speed of light in extreme-scale data centers for the most advanced AI and HPC workloads.
Lightmatter raised $400 million in its Series D round, reaching a valuation of $4.4 billion. We will continue to accelerate the development of data center photonics and grow every department at Lightmatter!
If you're passionate about tackling complex challenges, making an impact, and being an expert in your craft, join our team of brilliant scientists, engineers, and accomplished industry leaders.
Lightmatter is (re)inventing the future of computing with light!
About this role
We are hiring a Physical Design Timing Engineer to help drive backend digital execution for some of the leading photonics based interconnect solutions. You will work alongside a team of world-class scientists and engineers in defining how the system will be optimized and trailblaze problems that are new to the industry. If your passion is innovation, solving challenging technical problems and doing impactful work you should join our team.
In this job you will be responsible for timing constraints development, STA and timing closure on leading edge CMOS technologies and flows. This includes synthesis through place and route, timing closure, and tapeout signoff.
Responsibilities
- Drive the STA sign-off for our flagship Silicon photonics chips at various technology nodes.
- Analyze fab guidelines and work with the methodology team to incorporate sign off corners, margins, and derates into timing analysis flows and methodologies.
- Collaborate with the architecture, RTL, and DFT teams to analyze the timing complexities and develop consolidated timing modes and constraints for synthesis, along with PnR and chip timing sign-off flows.
- Analyze and understand the tradeoffs between power/performance and area goals to drive them into overall chip implementation flows.
- Run full-chip STA and accurately project the timing summary across scenarios.
- Leverage Tempus/PrimeTime to automate timing ECO generation for effective closure and support physical design implementation.
- Document best practices and lessons learned to drive continuous improvements in future projects.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer engineering
- 12 years of Physical Design experience, with a minimum of 5 years hands-on experience in ASIC STA and timing constraints development, timing closure with Cadence or Synopsys tools