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Contract Physical Design Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Etched

Physical Design Engineer

Cupertino, CA

$2.0K/mo

Physical Design Engineer Etched is looking for exceptional PD engineers to join our team. The candidate will be responsible for working with 3rd party design services to implement and verify physical ...

Wipro Limited

Physical Design Engineer

Mountain View, CA · On-site

$100K - $180K/yr

Physical Design Engineer City: Mountain View State/Province: California Posting Start Date: 8/6/26 Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO) is a leading technology services and consulting ...

Altera Corporation

Physical Design Engineer

San Jose, CA · On-site

$118K - $169K/yr

About the Role We are seeking a Physical Design Engineer to join our Silicon Design Automation & Implementation organization. In this role, you will contribute to the implementation of custom IP and ...

Apple

Physical Design Engineer

Cupertino, CA

$129K - $225K/yr

Description As a Physical Design engineer you will contribute to all phases of physical design of high performance PHY design from RTL to delivery of our final GDSII.","responsibilities":"Generate ...

Apple

Physical Design Engineer

Bodega Bay, CA

$262K - $394K/yr

Description As a Physical Design engineer you will contribute to all phases of physical design of high performance PHY design from RTL to delivery of our final GDSII. Your responsibilities include ...

Apple Inc.

Physical Design Engineer

Sunnyvale, CA · On-site

$184.70 - $324.80/hr

Description As a Physical Design engineer you will contribute to all phases of physical design of high performance PHY design from RTL to delivery of our final GDSII. Your responsibilities include ...

Apple

Physical Design Engineer

Bodega Bay, CA

$150K - $277K/yr

Description As a Physical Design engineer you will contribute to all phases of physical design of high performance PHY design from RTL to delivery of our final GDSII. Your responsibilities include ...

Altera

Physical Design Engineer

San Jose, CA · On-site

$118K - $169K/yr

About the Role We are seeking a Physical Design Engineer to join our Silicon Design Automation & Implementation organization. In this role, you will contribute to the implementation of custom IP and ...

Altera Corporation

Physical Design Engineer

San Jose, CA · On-site

$133K - $192K/yr

About the Role We are seeking a Physical Design Engineer to join our Silicon Engineering and Physical Design organization. In this role, you will be responsible for implementing advanced custom IP ...

The PJF Group

Physical Design Engineer

Bodega Bay, CA · On-site

$180K - $230K/yr

We're looking for a hands-on Physical Design Engineer to support complex SoC projects for our client who designs and delivers advanced System-on-Chip solutions across multiple emerging technologies.

CivicMinds, Inc.

Physical Design Engineer

San Diego, CA · On-site

$145K - $150K/yr

Physical design engineers are ideally creative, motivated, energetic, pleasant to work with, and put the needs of the team first. These candidates will be responsible for designs and test structures ...

The PJF Group

Physical Design Engineer

Bodega Bay, CA · On-site

$161K - $166K/yr

We're looking for a hands-on Physical Design Engineer to support complex SoC projects for our client who designs and delivers advanced System-on-Chip solutions across multiple emerging technologies.

Talent 101 Inc

Physical Design Engineer

Frisco, TX · On-site

$100 - $130/hr

About the role This is a full time position with our company doing Physical Design Engineering. What you'll do * Lead end to end Physical Design from floorplan to GDS * Own full PnR flow: placement ...

Talent 101, Inc.

Physical Design Engineer

Frisco, TX · On-site

$127K - $131K/yr

This is a full time position with our company doing Physical Design Engineering. What you'll do * Lead end to end Physical Design from floorplan to GDS * Own full PnR flow: placement, CTS, routing ...

Mirafra Technology

Physical Design Engineer

San Diego, CA · On-site

$144K - $148K/yr

Job Overview: The Graphics team is looking for Experienced Physical Design Engineers to work on Adreno Graphics cores in the area of Physical Implementation. Responsibilities: The Physical ...

Delos

Physical Design Engineer

Austin, TX · On-site

$120 - $160/hr

Job Summary Etched is looking for exceptional Physical Design engineers to join our team. In this role, you will own block-level implementation and verification, drive timing closure and PPA ...

Etched

Physical Design Engineer

San Jose, CA · On-site

$200K - $300K/yr

Job Summary Etched is looking for exceptional Physical Design engineers to join our team. In this role, you will own block-level implementation and verification, drive timing closure and PPA ...

The Consensus

Physical Design Engineer

San Jose, CA · On-site

$180 - $240/hr

Job Summary Etched is looking for exceptional Physical Design engineers to join our team. In this role, you will own block-level implementation and verification, drive timing closure and PPA ...

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Contract Physical Design Engineer information

See salary details

$95K

$141.5K

How much do contract physical design engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Aug 21, 2026, the average yearly pay for contract physical design engineer in the United States is $139,408.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $136,000.00 and $140,000.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is a contract physical design engineer?

Contract Physical Design Engineers are professionals who specialize in the layout and implementation of integrated circuits (ICs) for semiconductor devices, typically working on a temporary or project-based basis. They focus on transforming circuit designs into physical layouts that can be fabricated on silicon chips, ensuring optimal performance, power, and area efficiency. Their work involves tasks such as floorplanning, placement, routing, timing analysis, and design rule checking. Contract roles allow companies flexibility in staffing for specific projects or peak development periods, and engineers in these positions often work for consulting firms or as independent contractors.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a contract physical design engineer?

A Contract Physical Design Engineer typically requires a solid background in electrical engineering, strong knowledge of VLSI design, and hands-on experience with ASIC or FPGA physical implementation. Familiarity with EDA tools such as Synopsys ICC2, Cadence Innovus, and scripting languages like Tcl and Perl, as well as understanding of industry standards, is crucial. Standout soft skills include strong problem-solving abilities, attention to detail, and effective communication for collaborating with cross-functional teams. These skills ensure the engineer can deliver optimized, manufacturable chip layouts on time and within specification, which is vital for project and product success.

What are some common challenges faced by contract physical design engineers when joining new projects or teams?

Contract Physical Design Engineers often need to quickly adapt to new workflows, proprietary tools, and unique design methodologies used by different clients or teams. They may also face tight project timelines and the need to rapidly understand complex chip architectures. Effective communication and collaboration with cross-functional teams, such as verification and RTL design engineers, are critical to ensure design hand-offs and resolve issues efficiently. Flexibility, strong organizational skills, and a proactive approach to learning new environments are key to overcoming these challenges.
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Contract Physical Design Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Contract Physical Design Engineer job openings in the United States as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 60% Full Time, and 40% Contract. Highlights an 80% In-person, and 20% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $139,408 per year, or $67 per hour.

Physical Design Engineer

Etched

Cupertino, CA

$2.0K/mo

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision

Re-posted 27 days ago

Job description

About Etched

Etched is building AI chips that are hard-coded for individual model architectures. Our first product (Sohu) only supports transformers, but has an order of magnitude more throughput and lower latency than a B200. With Etched ASICs, you can build products that would be impossible with GPUs, like real-time video generation models and extremely deep chain-of-thought reasoning.

Physical Design Engineer 

Etched is looking for exceptional PD engineers to join our team. The candidate will be responsible for working with 3rd party design services to implement and verify physical designs, and will help Etched as we work to improve iteration speed on physical design.

Representative projects:

  • Supervise the outsourcing of physical design to a 3rd party service
  • Deeply understand what is involved in physical design
  • Running Physical Design flows to close blocks, support ASIC infrastructure, automate Physical Design flows, improve CAD infrastructure
  • Drive dashboards that show the convergence of projects related to Physical Design
  • Optimize tool flows, working with EDA vendors to incorporate the latest features
  • Accountable for block level closure

Requirements:

  • 2+ years of previous experience with PD
  • Tools, flow, and design methodology from RTL synthesis to GDSII sign-off
  • Experience with back-end design and timing closure on 3nm-7nm
  • Experience with UPF-based low power design methodology, power verification, synthesis, scan insertion/ATPG, formal verification, floorplanning, placement, CTS, routing, IR drop, and EM/antenna analysis
  • Deeply creative and able to think from first principles

Desired qualifications:

  • Familiarity with transformer models and machine learning.
  • Familiarity with OpenROAD and other automated RTL-to-GDSII flows
  • Ability to program with Python or another scripting language.

We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification.

How we're different:

Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson. We think most of the progress in the AI field has come from using more FLOPs to train and run models, and the best way to get more FLOPs is to build model-specific hardware. Larger and larger training runs encourage companies to consolidate around fewer model architectures, which creates a market for single-model ASICs.

We are a fully in-person team in Cupertino, and greatly value engineering skills. We do not have boundaries between engineering and research, and we expect all of our technical staff to contribute to both as needed.

Benefits:

  • Full medical, dental, and vision packages, with 100% of premium covered, 90% for dependents
  • Housing subsidy of $2,000/month for those living within walking distance of the office
  • Daily lunch and dinner in our office
  • Relocation support for those moving to Cupertino

Apply