Full-Time
Research Scientist / Engineer
Agents
Posted on 10/31/2025
ChipStack
1-10 employees
AI-driven semiconductor verification tools accelerate design
No salary listed
Seattle, WA, USA + 1 more
More locations: San Jose, CA, USA
Hybrid
 AI & Machine Learning (1) |
|---|
- 5+ years of combined ML research and / or software engineering experience
- Hands-on with LLMs: prompting, finetuning, evaluation
- Strong programming skills
- Solid foundations in distributed systems, data pipelines
- Cloud + on-premise infra experience involving GPUs. Familiarity with Docker
- Excellent communication & a bias toward collaborative problem-solving
- PhD or MS in ML, CS, or related field, or equivalent research + implementation experience
- Ability to build, evaluate, and iterate LLM-based applications
- Architect and iterate on agentic components: memory, context engineering, tool usage, multi-agent coordination
- Experiment with prompting, finetuning, and orchestration to improve agent performance
- Build scalable infrastructure for prompt iteration/testing, benchmarking, logging, and evaluation
- Assist with pipelines for fine-tuning, automated evaluation, and model deployment.
- Work directly with chip designers and ML infra engineers to embed agentic workflows into chip design pipelines
- Partner with product teams to solve core agent challenges (e.g., long-horizon planning, tool integration)
- Define and evaluate performance metrics for agent systems
- Design goal-oriented agentic workflows to enhance task completion
- Experience in fine-tuning LLMs specifically for agentic applications
- Experience designing agentic systems or multi-agent workflows
- Familiarity with reinforcement learning (RLHF/RL-agent contexts)
- Background in integrated ML infra and agent evaluation pipelines
- Interest or experience in the chip design/EDA domain
ChipStack provides AI-driven tools that speed up semiconductor verification for RTL designers and verification engineers. Its suite uses AI agents—such as MentalModelAgent to infer design intent, UnitSimAgent for unit-level simulations, UVMAgent to update UVM environments, and FormalAgent for formal verification—operating in natural language and integrating with standard verification tools to enable shift-left verification. This agent-based approach translates design intent into automated verification workflows, differentiating ChipStack by its focus on RTL verification and seamless EDA-toolchain integration. The goal is to cut verification time from weeks to days and help catch issues earlier in the chip design process.
Company Size
1-10
Company Stage
N/A
Total Funding
N/A
Headquarters
Campbell, California
Founded
2022
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Cadence integrates ChipStack with Xcelium, accelerating verification 70%.
- Google Cloud collaboration scales AI Super Agent, delivering 10X productivity.
- Multi-year Cadence partnership ensures full verification portfolio unification.
What critics are saying
- Synopsys DSO.ai captures market share with integrated EDA flows in 6-12 months.
- Founders Hegde and Shojaei exit Cadence within 12 months over bureaucracy.
- Siemens Valor AI poaches customers with superior formal verification accuracy.
What makes ChipStack unique
- MentalModelAgent infers RTL design intent for guiding verification agents.
- Natural language interfaces enable intuitive testbench generation and debugging.
- Shift-left verification reduces unit time from weeks to days via agentic AI.
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Benefits
Flexible Work Hours
Company News
Cadence acquires ChipStack to accelerate ai-powered chip verification. Cadence Design Systems has announced it will acquire ChipStack, a startup specialising in agentic AI solutions for chip verification. This acquisition strengthens Cadence's AI-driven design and verification offerings. As a result, engineers can expect accelerated workflows and improved productivity across ASIC and SoC projects. Founded by AI and semiconductor design experts, ChipStack provides a generative AI platform that supports intelligent test planning, automated test generation and AI-assisted debugging. Additionally, Cadence integrates ChipStack's technology with its Xcelium Logic Simulator, Formal Verification Platform and other front-end verification tools. This integration reduces functional verification cycles from weeks to days. It also maintains high accuracy, helping teams scale efficiently. The Cadence ChipStack acquisition builds on a multi-year collaboration between the two companies. Cadence will maintain and expand ChipStack's platform, now backed by the EDA leader's global support, security and infrastructure. Moreover, Cadence will fully integrate ChipStack's capabilities over time into its full-flow verification portfolio. This approach provides engineers with a unified, AI-powered experience across the design workflow. "We are delighted to welcome the entire ChipStack team to Cadence and look forward to driving the next generation of AI-driven chip design automation together." For chip designers and verification specialists, this acquisition highlights Cadence's focus on AI-enhanced verification. It also reflects the growing importance of generative AI tools in accelerating chip development. Read more about the Cadence' Chipstack acquisition here -> and explore additional semiconductor market updates and industry news here ->.
Semiconductor software giant Cadence Design Systems agreed to acquire ChipStack , a Seattle-based startup developing AI tools to speed up chip verification and design. ChipStack emerged from Seattle's AI2 Incubator in 2023 and raised more than $7 million. The startup built AI-powered agents that automate chip verification — traditionally one of the most time-intensive steps in semiconductor design. The entire 20-person team is joining San Jose, Calif.-based Cadence, which is expanding its AI-driven design portfolio amid competition to speed development cycles for advanced semiconductors. Cadence and ChipStack previously partnered on various integrations. All 20 employees from ChipStack are joining Cadence. Financial details were not disclosed, but investors saw a strong return on the deal, according to a spokesperson for ChipStack. ChipStack CEO and co-founder Kartik Hegde earned his PhD in computer science from University of Illinois in 2022. He founded ChipStack wtih CTO Hamid Shojaei , who previously worked at Lightmatter, Google, and Qualcomm. “As ChipStack's product adoption has grown, so has our ambition and vision,” Hedge wrote on LinkedIn . “When the opportunity came to join Cadence, it was clear to us that this is the best way to take our product to a wider audience, while expanding the feature set even faster.” Jacob Colker, managing director at AI2 Incubator, described the founders as “elite AI talent building the next wave of companies — deep technical expertise meeting real-world impact.” “They've built agentic AI that solves one of chip design's biggest bottlenecks, accelerating verification by 70%,” he said in a statement. “This is exactly the kind of applied AI innovation that defines this new era of entrepreneurship.”