Chief CPU Architect

About the role

You will serve as the chief CPU architect at a semiconductor company, the single technical authority for processor strategy across the organization. The chief architect defines the company's CPU vision for the next decade: which markets to serve, which ISAs to bet on, which microarchitectural directions to fund, and which technology partnerships to pursue. This is the most senior individual-contributor architecture role, carrying responsibility for decisions worth hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D and defining the competitive future of the company's processor business.

What you will achieve

• Set the decade-long CPU technology vision and roadmap, aligning market analysis, workload evolution, process technology, and competitive dynamics into a strategy the company can execute and investors can believe in.
• Make the defining technology bets of the organization such as ISA strategy, chiplet versus monolithic direction, or accelerator integration approach, with clear-eyed analysis of risk, reward, and timing.
• Establish the architectural governance of the company: review processes, methodology standards, and technical career paths that keep a large architecture organization excellent as it scales.
• Represent the company's CPU technology to customers, partners, analysts, and the industry, building the technical credibility that wins designs and partnerships.
• Advise the CEO and board on processor strategy with direct, honest assessments, including when the right answer is to change course on a major investment.
• Develop the next generation of architecture leaders, ensuring the organization's technical excellence compounds beyond any single person's contributions.

What you will bring

Must-haves

• 15 or more years of experience in CPU architecture with multiple generations of shipped, commercially successful processors.
• Demonstrated success setting technical strategy that an organization of hundreds executed to market success.
• Mastery spanning ISA, microarchitecture, implementation, physical design, silicon validation, and the software ecosystem.
• Exceptional judgment on technology bets, demonstrated through major decisions that proved correct over multi-year horizons.
• Outstanding communication and influence skills spanning engineers, executives, customers, partners, and industry audiences.
• A record of industry-defining innovation visible in landmark products, widely adopted ideas, patents, or standards leadership.
• The courage to make hard calls with incomplete information and the accountability to own their outcomes.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience leading architecture through major industry transitions such as ISA shifts or new computing paradigms.
• Established presence in the architecture research community and industry forums.
• Background spanning multiple companies or market segments, bringing comparative perspective on what works.