Principal Applications Engineer, Physical AI (AI2459)

Description

Job Title: Principal Applications Engineer, Physical AI

Job Location: San Jose, CA (This position requires a full-time, on-site presence in our San Jose, CA office)

Job ID: AI2459

Description:

The Principal Applications Engineer will play a key role in enabling customer success with our advanced Physical AI System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions. This position is responsible for providing technical leadership across customer proof-of-concept (PoC) initiatives, managing technical evaluations, troubleshooting software and system-level challenges, and driving successful execution of customer programs.

The ideal candidate combines deep expertise in embedded software with a strong understanding of Edge AI workloads and system integration. This is a customer-facing role requiring excellent communication skills, a collaborative mindset, and the ability to work effectively across engineering, product, and sales organizations.

Key Responsibilities:

Solution Development

• Develop, optimize, and deploy Edge AI applications on embedded AI processors.
• Build, test, and benchmark AI workloads including computer vision, sensor fusion, anomaly detection, predictive maintenance, object detection, classification and segmentation.
• Port, quantize, and optimize AI/ML models (CNNs, transformers, audio models, multimodal models, etc.)
• Work directly with customers to understand use cases, help integrate SDKs, debug runtime issues, and optimize performance.
  
  

Customer Engagement & Technical Enablement

• Lead technical onboarding and PoC activities for customers evaluating or integrating the company’s Edge AI SoCs.
• Understand customer requirements and provide detailed guidance on system configuration, software integration, and AI pipeline deployment.
• Deliver technical presentations, demos, and training sessions to support customer adoption.
  
  

Technical Issue Resolution

• Diagnose and resolve issues related to software integration, firmware behavior, drivers, and system-level interactions.
• Reproduce customer-reported problems, capture logs and diagnostics, and work closely with internal engineering teams to drive resolution.
• Develop high-quality documentation, including configuration guides, FAQs, and troubleshooting references.
  
  

Program Management & SOW Development

• Define scope, milestones, deliverables, and timelines for customer engagements; prepare Statements of Work (SOWs) for services-based programs.
• Serve as the technical program manager throughout the engagement lifecycle, ensuring timely execution and proactive communication of risks and progress.
• Coordinate cross-functional resources to ensure customer requirements are met and issues are resolved efficiently.
  
  

Qualifications:

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in electrical engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related discipline.
• 5–10 years of experience in applications engineering, embedded systems engineering, or solutions engineering within a semiconductor or embedded systems environment.
• Strong proficiency with embedded software development (e.g., embedded Linux, RTOS environments, firmware, drivers).
• Experience with AI/ML model deployment, runtime optimizations, or AI acceleration frameworks.
• Competency in C/C and Python, with the ability to diagnose issues spanning software, firmware, and system layers.
• Demonstrated experience interfacing with customers in a technical capacity.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
  
  

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Edge AI architectures, heterogeneous computing, or neural network accelerators.
• Familiarity with system-level profiling, performance tuning, and optimization for constrained embedded environments.
• Experience defining, negotiating, or managing Statements of Work for technical projects.
• Background in technical program or project management.
  
  

Personal Attributes:

Can-do attitude. Strong team player. Curious, creative and good at solving problems. Execution and results-oriented. Self-driven, Thinks Big and is highly accountable. Good communication skills.

The annual salary for this position ranges from $220,000 - $296,400. The actual annual salary paid for this position will be based on several factors, including but not limited to, skills, prior experiences, qualifications, expertise, work location, total target compensation, training, company needs, and current market demands. The annual salary range for this position is subject to change and may be adjusted in the future.

EEO Employer: SiMa is an equal opportunity employer; all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or any other protected classification.