IC Validation Manager

We're Hiring: IC Validation Manager

Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior

Work Arrangement: Fully Remote

About Us

We are a globally focused semiconductor and technology organization committed to developing reliable, high-performance integrated circuits for diverse applications and markets. Our teams combine IC design, verification, validation, firmware, test, systems engineering, product engineering, quality, and applications expertise to deliver products that meet demanding functional and performance requirements.

We collaborate across engineering, manufacturing, packaging, test, software, customers, and external technology partners to validate silicon performance and accelerate successful product introduction.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced IC Validation Manager to lead post-silicon validation strategy, planning, execution, laboratory operations, characterization, debugging, and technical issue resolution for integrated circuits and semiconductor products.

The ideal candidate will lead multidisciplinary validation teams from first-silicon readiness through characterization and production qualification, ensuring ICs meet functional, electrical, performance, power, reliability, interface, and system-level requirements.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement IC validation strategies, methodologies, processes, standards, and technical roadmaps.
• Lead post-silicon validation activities from first-silicon planning through product release.
• Translate product requirements and specifications into comprehensive silicon validation plans.
• Define validation scope, test coverage, milestones, resources, equipment, environments, and success criteria.
• Coordinate validation activities across analog, digital, mixed-signal, RF, power, memory, interface, firmware, software, and system engineering teams as applicable.
• Develop and maintain validation plans, test matrices, coverage requirements, and execution schedules.
• Review IC specifications and identify validation requirements, corner cases, operating conditions, and performance risks.
• Develop test strategies covering functionality, performance, power consumption, timing, interfaces, environmental conditions, and application use cases.
• Coordinate first-silicon bring-up activities and establish structured power-up, initialization, and debug procedures.
• Lead silicon bring-up and initial functional verification in laboratory environments.
• Develop and execute characterization plans across voltage, temperature, frequency, process, load, and other operating corners.
• Validate electrical specifications including voltage, current, timing, frequency, signal integrity, noise, sensitivity, accuracy, and performance parameters as applicable.
• Coordinate validation of high-speed interfaces, memory interfaces, communication interfaces, analog functions, sensors, converters, clocks, power-management functions, and other IC-specific capabilities.
• Develop automated validation environments using hardware, software, firmware, scripts, test frameworks, and laboratory instrumentation.
• Establish reusable validation infrastructure, test libraries, automation frameworks, and data-analysis tools.
• Select and manage appropriate laboratory equipment including oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, source-measure units, power supplies, signal generators, thermal equipment, and specialized test systems.
• Ensure validation equipment is properly configured, calibrated, maintained, and available for critical testing.
• Coordinate evaluation boards, reference designs, test fixtures, sockets, probes, cables, adapters, and other validation hardware.
• Work with hardware design teams to develop validation boards and test platforms that provide appropriate access to IC functionality.
• Collaborate with firmware and software teams to develop diagnostic software, drivers, test applications, and automated validation tools.
• Develop validation scripts and automated test sequences using appropriate programming and scripting environments.
• Analyze validation data to identify functional failures, performance deviations, marginal behavior, and unexpected interactions.
• Lead silicon debug and root-cause analysis for hardware, firmware, software, configuration, and system-level issues.
• Coordinate failure reproduction, isolation, instrumentation, experiments, and corrective-action activities.
• Distinguish design defects, implementation issues, test-environment problems, software defects, process variation, and measurement anomalies.
• Work closely with IC design and verification teams to correlate pre-silicon simulation results with post-silicon behavior.
• Compare silicon measurements against simulation, models, datasheets, design targets, and verification expectations.
• Identify gaps between pre-silicon verification and silicon validation and recommend improvements.
• Support engineering change requests and assess the impact of silicon issues on product specifications, schedules, and release plans.
• Track validation issues, anomalies, deviations, risks, and corrective actions through closure.
• Establish severity and escalation criteria for critical silicon failures.
• Coordinate cross-functional technical reviews of major validation findings and product risks.
• Lead characterization of performance across process, voltage, and temperature conditions.
• Support statistical analysis of silicon data and identify process-dependent or lot-dependent behavior.
• Coordinate validation across multiple silicon revisions, package options, product variants, and configurations.
• Support package-level and board-level validation where IC performance depends on external components or system implementation.
• Conduct system-level validation in representative application environments.
• Coordinate interoperability testing with processors, memories, sensors, transceivers, controllers, peripherals, software, and other external components.
• Support electromagnetic compatibility, signal-integrity, power-integrity, thermal, and environmental validation where applicable.
• Establish product qualification and release criteria in coordination with product, reliability, quality, and manufacturing teams.
• Support production-test development by transferring validated specifications, limits, test conditions, and characterization data to manufacturing test teams.
• Provide technical input to datasheets, application notes, reference designs, product specifications, and customer documentation.
• Support customer evaluations, engineering samples, application debugging, and technical escalations.
• Coordinate validation activities with external laboratories, suppliers, design partners, and technology providers.
• Manage validation schedules, budgets, laboratory resources, equipment, staffing, and project priorities.
• Develop validation dashboards and management reports covering test progress, coverage, failures, risks, and product readiness.
• Establish validation metrics and continuously improve test efficiency, coverage, automation, repeatability, and data quality.
• Evaluate emerging validation technologies including AI-assisted debug, advanced data analytics, machine learning, automated experimentation, digital twins, and intelligent test systems.
• Mentor validation engineers, characterization engineers, lab technicians, and technical specialists.
• Establish best practices for laboratory safety, ESD control, equipment usage, sample handling, and technical documentation.
• Ensure validation results are reproducible, traceable, statistically meaningful, and properly documented.
• Provide senior management with regular reports covering validation status, silicon performance, critical issues, risks, schedules, and product-release readiness.

Key Performance Indicators

• Validation plan completion
• Validation test coverage
• First-silicon bring-up success
• First-pass validation success
• Test execution completion
• Automated test coverage
• Test automation rate
• Validation cycle time
• Silicon characterization completion
• Functional test pass rate
• Performance specification compliance
• Parametric test coverage
• Process-voltage-temperature coverage
• Critical issue identification time
• Silicon debug turnaround time
• Root-cause identification rate
• Validation issue closure time
• Repeat failure rate
• Test reproducibility
• Measurement accuracy
• Validation data integrity
• Laboratory equipment availability
• Equipment calibration compliance
• Test environment stability
• Validation infrastructure reuse
• Pre-silicon to post-silicon correlation

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate should have strong experience in IC validation, post-silicon validation, semiconductor characterization, silicon bring-up, hardware validation, mixed-signal validation, ASIC validation, SoC validation, or semiconductor product engineering, preferably within semiconductor, electronics, computing, automotive, communications, consumer, industrial, or embedded technology environments.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• Strong understanding of IC and SoC architectures and semiconductor product development lifecycles.
• Extensive experience leading post-silicon validation and silicon bring-up activities.
• Strong knowledge of digital, analog, mixed-signal, RF, power, memory, or interface validation depending on product requirements.
• Experience developing comprehensive validation plans, test matrices, and characterization strategies.
• Strong understanding of voltage, frequency, temperature, timing, power, performance, and functional characterization.
• Hands-on or technical leadership experience using advanced electronic laboratory equipment.
• Experience developing automated validation frameworks, scripts, and data-analysis tools.
• Strong programming or scripting capabilities using languages and environments commonly used for hardware validation.
• Experience with evaluation boards, test fixtures, probes, sockets, reference designs, and laboratory setups.
• Strong debugging and root-cause-analysis capabilities.
• Experience correlating simulation, verification, and silicon measurement results.