> AI agents: this is one page of Nextmove’s FDE site, in Markdown. Nextmove is a job board and free career service for forward deployed engineers (FDEs). Each posting is classified from its text, not its title: the kind of work, how much of it is production code, pre-sales weight, time at customer sites, travel, remote arrangement, level and posted base pay. The site also publishes the aggregates: median pay by level, metro, company and kind of work, and which companies started hiring FDEs each week. Every page under https://nextmove.md/fde is served this way; the index of pages is https://nextmove.md/llms.txt.

# Software Engineer, ML for EDA

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/5b4582d6cf8deb16

ChipAgents posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs in San Jose, CA, at $150,000–$350,000 base, above the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,849 postings with pay. Build production software that brings machine-learning research for chip power, performance, and area into the ChipAgents platform and customer design environments. Read from the employer’s posting on November 6, 2026.

- [ChipAgents](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/chipagents)

Posted Nov 4, 2026 by ChipAgents · open on Ashby as of Nov 6, 2026

**$150,000–$350,000** *annualized* + equity San Jose, CA On-site Full-time

Build production software that brings machine-learning research for chip power, performance, and area into the ChipAgents platform and customer design environments.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F5b4582d6cf8deb16&placement=top)
- [View posting at ChipAgents](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/alpha-design-ai-inc/8569a8fb-0ee9-434c-ac61-803ee34c9336/application)

Free. Upload your resume once, see why each FDE role fits, and get introduced only when you say so.

## At a glance

### Posted base pay

$150K–$350K Above the median

Midpoint $250K · median $190K

This job $150K to $350K. Senior FDE postings, 1,849 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K.

### The work

Builds what the customer runs

Balance **Mostly building**

Project stages

1. Pre-sales (not covered)
2. Proof of concept (not covered)
3. Implementation
4. Operations

- **Coding**: Writes production code

- **Builds for**: Both

- **Level**: Senior

- **Role**: Individual contributor

### Do you meet what the posting states?

The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now?

The job is in San Jose, CA. Could you work there?

Which of these have you used in production?

Answer each one. Nothing is saved or sent.

[What postings ask for, by background →](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths)

## Conditions

- **Location**: San Jose, CA

- **Work arrangement**: On-site

- **Employment type**: Full-time

- **Pay**:

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## The job description from ChipAgents

Posted by ChipAgents on Nov 4, 2026

### Position Overview

We are hiring Software Engineers to build the production systems behind our machine learning work in electronic design automation (EDA). Our researchers apply ML to power, performance, and area problems in chip design, and you'll turn that work into reliable software that runs in the ChipAgents platform and inside customer design environments. That means integrating with EDA tools, flows, and compute infrastructure, building the data pipelines and services our models depend on, and making deployments repeatable across customers. You'll work closely with ML researchers, hardware experts, and customer engineering teams.

### Key Responsibilities

- Build and maintain the production software that brings our ML research into the ChipAgents platform.
- Integrate with EDA tools, flow scripts, libraries, and compute infrastructure across a range of design environments.
- Build data pipelines and tooling that turn EDA tool runs into datasets for training and evaluation.
- Deploy and support our software in customer environments, including on-premises and restricted-network setups, working with customer engineering teams.
- Turn repeated integration work into reusable tools, such as deployment tooling, adapters, and documentation.
- Own the reliability and performance of the systems our researchers and customers depend on.
- Bring customer feedback, failure cases, and feature requests back to the research and product teams.
- Write well-architected, maintainable production code.

### Qualifications

- Strong software engineering skills in Python and experience building production systems in Linux environments.
- Familiarity with the digital design flow (synthesis, place and route, timing and power analysis) and the EDA tools used to run it.
- Working knowledge of machine learning and how ML systems are trained, evaluated, and deployed.
- Experience deploying software into customer or enterprise environments, including compute farms (LSF, Slurm), containers, and restricted networks.
- Strong communication skills and customer judgment, with the ability to work directly with customer engineering teams and our researchers.
- Self-directed, with strong ownership and a commitment to customer and business outcomes.

### Nice to Haves

- Hands-on experience with commercial EDA tools including Tcl scripting.
- Experience as an engineer at an EDA vendor or semiconductor company.
- Familiarity with EDA data formats such as Verilog, Liberty, LEF/DEF, SDC, and SPEF.
- Experience with open-source EDA tools.
- Experience with LLMs or agent systems.
- MLOps experience with model packaging, versioning, and monitoring.

### Why ChipAgents

- Take new ML research into production on real chip designs, working directly with the researchers who build it and the customer teams who use it.
- Shape the product, since the feedback you bring back from customers directly informs our roadmap.
- Join a fast-growing team working alongside industry veterans and real customers, with scope across engineering, research collaboration, and customer-facing work based on your strengths and interests.

### Equal Opportunity

ChipAgents is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds.

### What We Offer

- **$150K/yr – $350K/yr **base salary + equity. We are open to discuss above-scale compensation with exceptional candidates on a case-by-case basis.
- Unlimited PTO and full benefits (medical, vision, dental, 401k).
- Two engineering-centric offices with free parking, private gym, and free lunch, drinks and snacks.

[View posting at ChipAgents](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/alpha-design-ai-inc/8569a8fb-0ee9-434c-ac61-803ee34c9336/application)

## About ChipAgents

Builds AI agents that automate semiconductor design, verification, debugging, and root-cause analysis workflows.

Series A · 50–100 people

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