Senior Director - System Architecture

Ambiq is on a mission to enable intelligence everywhere — powering the AI edge revolution with the world's lowest-power semiconductor solutions.Built on our proprietary sub-and near-threshold technology, our chips deliver multi-fold improvements in energy efficiency without costly process scaling. Since 2010, we've shipped over 290 million units to customers building smarter wearables, medical devices, IoT products, and AI-powered edge applications.Our cross-functional teams span design, research, development, production, marketing, sales, and operations across Austin, Hsinchu, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Singapore. We move fast, tackle hard problems, and create space for people to grow through complex, meaningful work that shapes the future of technology.We're looking for self-motivated, creative problem-solvers who are eager to push technological limits and make a real impact in energy efficiency.At Ambiq, we live by five values: Innovate. Collaborate. Focus. Learn. Achieve.If that's you, join us — the intelligence everywhere revolution starts here.This role will be on-site 5 days a week in NW Austin.ScopeThe Sr Director of System Architecture will be responsible as the lead architect for developing next-generation ultra-low-power, AI-based SoC architectures for future Ambiq products. The candidate will own the development and coordination of new product architectures with the Marketing, Advanced Development, and Engineering teams. This position will report directly to the VP of Architecture. Areas of interest include low-power embedded microprocessor and microcontroller-based System on Chip (SoC), interconnect technologies, memory technologies and topologies, clocking, power management, as well as preferred familiarity with 2D and 3D graphics accelerators and display controller technologies, video and image processing, and Neural Network processors/accelerators/NPUs. The candidate will have sufficient experience with system-level design, hardware/software partitioning, power, and performance modeling/tradeoffs.ExpectationsWork with Ambiq's Marketing, Advanced Development, architecture, and engineering teams to drive development of new ultra-low-power AI System on Chip (SoC) architectures on Ambiq Micro's technology and product roadmapsDevelop high-level specifications and drive power/performance modeling and analysisAnalyze low-power interconnect, memory and hardware accelerator technologies and applications to identify opportunities for extending Ambiq's low power leadershipSupport definition of Ambiq's technology roadmap including external and internal IP assessment, definition, and integrationWork with the engineering teams to transition architecture specification into Ambiq Micro's productsWork with systems, solutions, and software teams to ensure robust interfaces and support key product use casesSupport post-silicon analysis and efficient delivery of Ambiq products to customers for mass productionSpecific ResponsibilitiesAs the Sr Director of System Architecture at Ambiq, you will lead architecture definition of various Ambiq low-power AI SoC's from initial concept to mass production.This is a critical functional at Ambiq to support delivering the world's lowest power electronic devices to enable ubiquitous AI at the edge. This is a cross-functional position working with software and hardware engineering teams, applications engineering and field teams to ensure alignment to product requirements, logical and physical design constraints, power and performance targets and overall system architecture. This role will encompass high-level architecture specification, low-level microarchitecture, process node dependent analysis, power/performance modeling, analysis, and use case definition.Architecture specifications including flow diagrams/sequences, power/performance models and pseudocodeCustomer interaction as needed to ensure alignment on key features and competitive product positioningMicroarchitecture specifications (as applicable) and support to enable software and hardware designSupport for use case and test case developmentIntegration specifications to support system interfaces and external power management requirements/interfacesWork with FPGA team to bring up critical SoC featuresWork with software architecture to define flows, APIs and hardware abstraction layersWork with physical design team to ensure robust/optimal implementationWork with design team to debug issues using RTL and gate level simulationEducation and ExperienceThe candidate should be comfortable with independent specification, analysis and development from high-level concepts through design and validation as well as collaborative development with software and hardware engineering. A deep knowledge of embedded systems and microprocessor/microcontroller based AI System on Chip (SoC) specifically targeting wearable/IoT and mobile systems is critical along with specific experience delivering low-power architectures to market. A working knowledge of SoC architecture, fabric/interconnect technologies, power management and advanced process nodes is required. Additionally, experience with wireless technologies and SoCs specifically Bluetooth, WiFi, NFC and GPS is preferred. The candidate should be comfortable with full system dataflows and modeling to guide hardware and software analysis and development.Specific ExperienceMinimum of 15 years of microprocessor/microcontroller based System on Chip or similar architecture and design experience targeting wearable/IoT and mobile productsExperience developing novel low-power architectures from idea to specification to design to post-silicon validationWorking knowledge of low-power modern mobile consumer electronic systems requiredExperience in advanced process node technologies highly desirableBS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering or Computer Science (must have)MS or PhD (strongly preferred)Individual contributor role but strong technical and team leadership experience is desired.Must have experience creating architectural specifications for System-on-Chip or similar complex hardware devicesMust communicate well (verbal and written)Must be currently authorized to work in the United States for any employer. We do not sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment visas (now or in the future) for this role.As set forth in Ambiq Micro, Inc.'s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.J-18808-Ljbffr