Staff Engineer (Virtual Prototyping)

Category Engineering Hire Type Employee Job ID 17531 Remote Eligible No Date Posted 05/17/2026

We Are

Synopsys is the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products. We deliver industry-leading silicon design, IP, simulation and analysis solutions, and design services. We partner closely with our customers across a wide range of industries to maximize their R&D capability and productivity, powering innovation today that ignites the ingenuity of tomorrow.

You Are

Driven by curiosity and a passion for technology, you bring strong C/C++ skills and hands-on embedded software experience to the table. Comfortable navigating complex systems, you enjoy tackling challenging problems and collaborating with global teams to create impactful solutions. 

Your expertise includes working with Linux OS, open-source tools, and hardware-software integration, and you thrive in environments where innovation and teamwork are valued. Your experience in building an embedded software that bridges hardware and silicon have taught you that the real challenge is not writing code that compiles, it is writing code that runs reliably on real systems under real constraints. Working with open-source tools, contributing to unfamiliar codebases, and collaborating with engineers across time zones to solve adjacent pieces of the same problem is how the best work gets done. Whether configuring a build in Yocto, debugging a kernel panic, or tracing a Virtio driver issue across multiple layers, moving through the stack is second nature.

Adaptability, effective communication, and a commitment to delivering reliable, high-quality results define your approach, making you a valuable contributor to our agile and inclusive Virtual Prototyping team.

At Synopsys, you will work on virtual prototyping platforms that help our customers validate their designs before silicon exists. The work is technical, the problems are real, and the team is global.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Develop and maintain embedded software for virtual prototyping platforms, including Linux OS configuration, driver development, and hardware-software integration
• Build and debug software stacks on Arm-based virtual platforms, working across bare-metal, RTOS, and Linux environments
• Implement and integrate IP drivers for protocols like Virtio, MIPI (CSI/DSI/I3C), DMA, SSI, I2C, and mobile storage interfaces
• Work with open-source build systems like Buildroot and Yocto to configure, build, and deploy embedded Linux environments
• Integrate and validate multimedia and security utilities including FFmpeg, GStreamer, and OpenSSL on virtual platforms
• Debug complex hardware-software interaction issues using SystemC, transaction-level modeling (TLM), and low-level debugging tools
• Collaborate with global teams across IP development, platform engineering, and customer-facing validation to ensure platform correctness and performance

The Impact You Will Have

• Empowering customers to accelerate product development cycles by providing robust virtual prototypes before hardware availability.
• Driving innovation in simulation solutions for next-generation electronic platforms.
• Enhancing the quality and reliability of Synopsys’ Virtual Prototyping offerings for automotive, enterprise, and cloud markets.
• Facilitating seamless hardware-software integration and validation for global customers.
• Contributing to the advancement of open-source and proprietary technologies in embedded systems.
• Strengthening Synopsys’ position as a leader in chip design, verification, and IP integration.

What You’ll Need

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electronics Engineering, or a related field
• Strong proficiency in C and C++ for embedded and systems-level software development
• Hands-on experience with embedded Linux, including OS build, configuration, and kernel-level debugging
• Experience developing IP drivers or low-level software for protocols such as Virtio, MIPI (CSI/DSI/I3C), Security, DMA, SSI, I2C, or mobile storage
• Solid understanding of hardware-software interaction, including register-level programming and memory-mapped I/O
• Experience with open-source build systems like Buildroot or Yocto is a strong plus
• Familiarity with SystemC and transaction-level modeling (TLM) is highly valued, as is experience with Arm architecture and embedded software development on Arm cores

Who You Are

• You can debug a kernel crash, trace it back to a misconfigured DMA controller, and explain the root cause to a hardware engineer in a few sentences
• You are comfortable working across codebases you did not write, contributing fixes, and understanding the broader system context without needing perfect documentation
• You stay current with open-source tools and embedded Linux development practices, and you know when to adopt a new tool versus when to stick with what works
• You can work effectively with global teams, navigating time zones and communication styles without losing momentum on technical work
• You care about delivering software that is not just functional but maintainable, debuggable, and ready for the next engineer who has to work with it

The Team You’ll Be A Part Of

You’ll join the Virtual Prototyping team based in Maia, Porto, collaborating with experts in simulation, embedded software, and system modeling. The team is focused on delivering world-class virtual platforms for customers across automotive, enterprise, telecommunications, and cloud markets. You will be part of a dynamic, agile group that values innovation, inclusivity, and the pursuit of excellence.

Rewards and Benefits

We offer a comprehensive range of health, wellness, and financial benefits to cater to your needs. Our total rewards include both monetary and non-monetary offerings. Your recruiter will provide more details about the salary range and benefits during the hiring process.

#TPG

At Synopsys, we want talented people of every background to feel valued and supported to do their best work. Synopsys considers all applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, military veteran status, or disability.