FPGA Compiler (Placer) Engineer

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Job Description:

About Altera

At Altera™, our independence as the world’s largest pure‑play FPGA solutions provider gives us the focus, speed, and agility to innovate without compromise. With more than four decades of industry‑leading FPGA expertise, our singular mission is to deliver the programmable technologies that help customers differentiate, innovate, and scale across rapidly evolving markets like AI, cloud, networking, and edge. As an independent company, we move faster, invest deeper, and partner more closely—empowering our teams to drive breakthrough innovation and shape the future of the FPGA industry.

Position Overview

Altera is a leader in FPGA innovation, delivering programmable solutions that power AI, cloud computing, networking, and edge applications. Our compiler and tools teams are central to enabling customers to efficiently map complex designs onto advanced FPGA architectures.

Altera is seeking a FPGA Compiler Engineer (Placer) to join our Compiler team in San Jose, CA. This role focuses on developing and optimizing FPGA placement algorithms within the compiler toolchain, directly impacting performance, power efficiency, and overall design quality.

The ideal candidate brings strong expertise in EDA algorithms, large-scale system optimization, and FPGA/ASIC physical design flows, along with a passion for solving complex, performance-critical problems.

Key Responsibilities:

• Placement Algorithm Development:
  Design, implement, and enhance FPGA placement algorithms to optimize timing, congestion, and resource utilization.

• Compiler Flow Enhancement:
  Contribute to the end-to-end FPGA compilation flow, working closely with routing, synthesis, and timing teams.

• Performance Optimization:
  Improve runtime performance, scalability, and quality of results (QoR) for large and complex customer designs.

• Timing-Driven Placement:
  Develop and refine timing-aware placement strategies to support high-frequency, performance-critical designs.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration:
  Partner with architecture, routing, and STA teams to align placement strategies with FPGA device capabilities and constraints.

• Debug & Analysis:
  Analyze placement quality, congestion hotspots, and timing bottlenecks; drive improvements to convergence and design closure.

• Toolchain Integration:
  Integrate new placement capabilities into the compiler infrastructure and validate across diverse workloads.

Why Join Altera?

• Work on core compiler technology that directly impacts FPGA performance and usability

• Solve challenging algorithmic problems at scale

• Collaborate with world-class teams across architecture, silicon, and software

Salary

The pay range below is for Bay Area California only. Actual salary may vary based on a number of factors including job location, job-related knowledge, skills, experiences, trainings, etc. We also offer incentive opportunities that reward employees based on individual and company performance.  

$149.1K - $215.9K USD 

We use artificial intelligence to screen, assess, or select applicants for the position. Applicants must be eligible for any required U.S. export authorizations. 

#CG-1

Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.

• 6+ years of experience in FPGA/ASIC CAD, EDA tools, or related fields.

• Experience in algorithms and data structures (optimization, graph theory, heuristics)

• Experience with placement algorithms or physical design flows

• Experience in C/C++ and software engineering best practices

• Experience with placement techniques (analytical placement, simulated annealing, partitioning, clustering)

• Experience with Timing-driven and congestion-driven optimization

• Experience in ASIC or FPGA physical design methodologies

• Experience in solving complex, large-scale optimization problems with high performance and scalability requirements.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with FPGA toolchains (e.g., Quartus, Vivado)

• Knowledge of FPGA architectures and interconnect fabrics

• Familiarity with routing and timing closure techniques

• Experience with parallel or distributed algorithms for EDA tools

• Scripting experience (e.g., Python, Tcl) for tooling and automation

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