Principal IC Digital Design Engineer

U-Blox is seeking an experienced (Senior) Principal IC Design Engineer to coordinate and execute the development and delivery of integrated circuits for next-generation GNSS applications. You will provide overall leadership across the chip program, aligning architecture, design, verification, implementation, dft, production test, characterization and validation activities to achieve product, quality, schedule, and cost objectives.

In this role you are not expected to be the absolute technical expert in every domain, rather you need to be able to work across and with the various disciplines and their respective experts. You will establish clear ownership, delegate detailed technical leadership to the relevant Team Leads, enable timely cross-functional decisions, and maintain an integrated view of risks, dependencies, and delivery across the complete IC development lifecycle.

This role is available in Thalwil, Switzerland, Athens, Greece, Cork, Ireland, Leuven, Belgium.

Your Responsibilities:

• Own the integrated chip development plan from concept through tape-out and design completion.
• Align System, RF, Analog/Mixed-Signal, Digital, Verification, Physical Design, DFT, Product, Test, Firmware and Characterization and Validation teams on chip-level requirements, interfaces, priorities, and milestones.
• Translate GNSS product objectives into a coherent chip execution strategy, ensuring that performance, power, area, cost, quality, and schedule targets are understood and managed.
• Work closely with Project Managers, Team Leads and Line Managers to build realistic plans, resolve cross-team dependencies, mitigate schedule risks, and identify resource needs for current and future developments.
• Provide overall technical direction at chip level while delegating detailed domain leadership and technical decisions to appropriately qualified Team Leads and subject-matter experts.
• Facilitate architectural and implementation trade-offs across subsystems, ensuring decisions are timely, documented, and consistent with GNSS use cases and product requirements.
• Drive an integrated approach to verification, modelling, mixed-signal simulation, physical implementation, sign-off, and validation to improve predictability and first-silicon success.
• Maintain the chip-level risk registry, proactively identify gaps and conflicts, and ensure that owners implement and track effective mitigation actions.
• Communicate program status, key decisions, technical risks, and recovery plans clearly to engineering leadership and other stakeholders.

Your Skills and Experience:

• Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Microelectronics, or a closely related discipline.
• Significant industry experience in complex IC development, with successful delivery from requirements through tape-out, silicon validation, and production release.
• By preference, proven experience leading a chip or major IC subsystem across multiple engineering disciplines in a semiconductor product development environment.
• Demonstrated ability to influence without direct authority, establish clear accountability, enable collaboration, and drive decisions across cross-functional teams.
• Broad understanding of IC architecture and development, including analog/mixed-signal, RF, digital, verification, physical design, DFT, test, packaging, and silicon validation.
• Familiarity with GNSS receiver concepts and the constraints of low-power, high-performance, highly integrated wireless products.
• Sound judgement to determine which decisions require chip-level ownership and which should be delegated to Team Leads or subject-matter experts.
• Strong planning, organization, risk-management, and communication skills, with the ability to manage multiple workstreams, priorities, dependencies, and stakeholders effectively.
• Ability to combine sufficient technical breadth with programme leadership, constructive challenge, and disciplined execution in a fast-paced engineering environment.

Requirements:

• EU/Schengen-zone citizen, or holder of a work permit.

What are your perks?

• A multicultural and international company with over 60 different nationalities
• Project-based activities working with colleagues distributed across the globe.
• A start-up and innovation mindset while in the process of scaling-up processes and efficiencies
• A strong learning environment and regular career discussions
• Hybrid working model, work from abroad days, flexible working hours
• Bonus plan
• … and discover even more by talking with us!
• Learn more about u-blox and its mission by watching this video !

• We see diversity as a strength and promote a culture of inclusion among our employees. Our varied backgrounds, ideas and experiences are critical to our success. We strive to become a strong learning organization and are committed to provide our employees with equal opportunities regardless of differences such as gender, race, ethnicity, generations, belief.