Silicon Validation Engineer

Summary

In this highly visible role, you will bring up and validate new Apple Silicon at the bench while building the internal software platforms the broader hardware and lab organization relies on daily. At Apple, we work every day to craft products that enrich people’s lives and as part of an extremely dynamic, forward-thinking team, you’ll have the rare opportunity to build nuanced tools that help delight millions of Apple’s customers. If you love debugging silicon that has never run before, tackling challenges no one has solved yet, and automating tasks that span multiple continents, building the tools that make everyone else’s debug faster, this is the role for you.

Minimum Qualifications

BS and 10+ years of relevant industry experience.

Preferred Qualifications

MS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field with 6+ years of experience Direct experience with silicon bring-up or hardware validation, including register-level debug Strong Python fundamentals, with a proven record of building and maintaining production-quality internal tools, APIs, and shared instrumentation/automation libraries Proven collaborator across teams, with clarity, ownership, and timely communication Hands-on experience with lab/test instrumentation (scopes, BERTs, spectrum analyzers) and instrument automation Experience with device/fleet monitoring systems (topology, MAC/port tracking, calibration tracking) Experience with AI-assisted development, plugins, custom skills/agents, or agentic workflows Experience developing, deploying, and maintaining applied ML or statistical modeling pipelines to analyze lab and system data at scale Prior experience publishing papers, posters, or other technical work in relevant conferences or venues

Description

In this role, you will bring up and validate new Apple Silicon at the bench, debugging silicon that has never run before and tackling hardware issues as they surface in the lab. Alongside this hands-on validation work, you'll develop methods to improve and automate the collection, storage, processing, and visualization of silicon validation data from labs worldwide. You’ll build and deploy scalable data pipelines using scheduling systems and design infrastructure to support distributed validation across bare metal macOS, Docker, and Kubernetes environments. You will also automate the setup of silicon validation environments and manage data migration across systems. A part of the role includes instrument tracking and network automation—integrating with lab hardware to configure devices, manage network environments, monitor instrument status, and collect validation data securely and at scale. For efficient and insightful data analytics, you’ll build AI/ML based tools that accelerate data analysis and integrate with existing data analysis platforms. This includes tracking power utilization of lab equipment, identifying patterns in usage, and optimizing for future demand through predictive modeling. This work involves close collaboration with hardware, software, and infrastructure teams to enable rapid data exploration, debug large-scale systems, and implement alerting mechanisms that enhance observability and transparency across automation workflows.

Responsibilities

Lead bring-up of new SoCs and boards from first power-on through validation sign-off, register-level debug, protocol analysis, and root-causing issues across hardware, software, and test infrastructure Run validation test plans against design specs and triage failures at the bench with lab instrumentation (scopes, BERTs, spectrum analyzers), collaborating with validation engineers to drive issues through to closure Apply AI-assisted development to lab tooling, including plugins, custom skills, and agentic workflows Develop shared instrumentation/automation libraries used across lab teams, and APIs/data pipelines that tie lab instrumentation and validation tooling into a coherent platform