Staff CPU Architect

CPU Architect Staff (L6 equivalent), scope across multiple teams 8-12 years

Other levels: CPU Architect Senior CPU Architect Principal CPU Architect Lead CPU Architect Junior CPU Architect

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Arm

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The job description

Tech stack. gem5, SST, SystemVerilog, multi-program PPA analysis, Arm and RISC-V ISAs, Python, performance correlation methodology, modeling infrastructure, cross-team technical leadership

About the role

You will operate as a staff architect with influence spanning several CPU programs and teams at a semiconductor company, working on the problems that belong to no single team but affect them all. Staff architects are the connective tissue of the architecture organization: they resolve cross-team technical conflicts, harmonize methodologies across programs, build shared infrastructure, and raise the technical bar everywhere they engage. Your scope crosses team boundaries by design, and program leaders will seek your judgment on their most consequential decisions.

What you will achieve

Drive architecture alignment across two or more concurrent CPU programs, ensuring consistent methodologies for performance modeling, specification writing, and performance sign-off at milestones.
Resolve cross-team technical conflicts such as interface definitions, shared-resource allocation policies, or modeling assumption disputes, with decisions that endure because they are technically correct and fairly reached.
Build reusable performance modeling infrastructure, correlation flows, and analysis tools that significantly reduce model bring-up time and improve projection quality for new programs.
Lead the performance risk assessment for major program milestones, identifying projection gaps and microarchitectural risks early enough that the program can still take corrective action.
Partner with software, systems, and product teams to validate that architectural choices deliver genuine application-level gains rather than narrow, benchmark-specific wins that do not translate to customers.
Champion the adoption of improved tools and methods, such as ML-assisted design space exploration or advanced workload synthesis, measuring their impact on the architecture organization's effectiveness.

What you will bring

Must-haves

8 to 12 years of experience in CPU architecture or performance modeling with at least two shipped processors in production products.
Proven ability to influence, align, and unblock multiple teams through technical credibility rather than formal authority.
Deep expertise in at least two CPU subsystem domains such as instruction fetch and branch prediction, out-of-order execution, memory subsystems, or power management architecture.
Experience building or significantly improving architecture methodologies, modeling infrastructure, or analysis flows adopted beyond a single team.
Strong grasp of the complete product development cycle from early concept through architecture, implementation, verification, silicon validation, and production.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills for cross-functional technical leadership, including the ability to write persuasively about tradeoffs.
Sound judgment about which technical battles are worth fighting and the persistence to see the important ones through to resolution.

Nice-to-haves

Experience with chiplet-based or multi-die CPU architectures and their unique challenges.
Familiarity with formal methods, advanced verification approaches, or their application to architecture.
Prior technical leadership of architects or architecture teams spanning multiple programs.