• AI/ML CAD Engineer, RTL & Design Verification

$122K - $232K Austin, TX, US Mid Level AI/ML Engineer

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Skills & Technologies

ClaudePython

About This Role

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Job Details:

Job Description:

The Role and Impact

Join a team helping shape the future of high-performance CPU design. As an AI/ML CAD Engineer supporting RTL and Design Verification , you will develop and enhance automation, tools, and methodologies that help engineering teams design and validate advanced microprocessors.

You will combine software engineering, CAD/EDA, RTL and verification knowledge, and AI-assisted development to improve front-end design workflows spanning RTL development, simulation, verification, emulation, static sign-off, and CI/CD.

This is an opportunity to apply strong programming and problem-solving skills to complex CPU development challenges while helping introduce AI-enabled capabilities that improve engineering productivity and efficiency.

What You'll Do

Key responsibilities will include but not limited to:

  • Troubleshoot issues across RTL, EDA Frontend tools (VC_SPYGLASS(Lint, CDC and RDC), VCS, VMS) and automation infrastructure, and design environments.
  • Develop, deploy, and maintain AI-assisted CAD/EDA automation, tools, and workflows supporting RTL design and verification.
  • Build scripts and software solutions that improve RTL build, simulation, verification, emulation, regression, and static sign-off workflows.
  • Apply AI/ML and AI-assisted development technologies to improve engineering automation, debugging, and productivity.
  • Develop and enhance CI/CD and regression automation for hardware development workflows.
  • Analyze workflow and infrastructure data to identify opportunities for improved performance, reliability, and engineering efficiency.
  • Partner with engineering and cloud infrastructure teams to improve compute utilization and scalability.

Collaborate with RTL design, verification, CAD, infrastructure teams, and EDA vendors to resolve technical issues and improve methodologies. *

Behavioral traits that we are looking for:

  • Technical curiosity: Enjoys learning new technologies and finding better ways to solve engineering challenges.
  • Problem solving: Uses structured analysis and sound judgment to troubleshoot complex technical issues.
  • Collaboration: Works effectively across design, verification, software, infrastructure, and vendor teams.
  • Communication: Clearly communicates technical issues, recommendations, and solutions to different audiences.
  • Ownership: Takes responsibility for deliverables and follows issues through resolution.
  • Adaptability: Comfortable learning and working across evolving AI, software, and semiconductor design technologies.

Intel invests in our people and offers a complete and competitive package of benefits employees and their families through every stage of life.

  • See Intel Benefits for more details.

Qualifications:

You must possess the below minimum qualifications to be initially considered for this position. Preferred qualifications are in addition to the minimum requirements and are considered a plus factor in identifying top candidates. Requirements listed would be obtained through a combination of industry relevant job experience, internship experiences and or schoolwork/classes/research.

Note:

For information on Intel’s immigration sponsorship guidelines, please see

Intel U.S. Immigration Sponsorship Information

Minimum Qualifications and Experience :

Bachelor's in Electrical or Computer Engineering or Computer Science + 3+ years of experience, or a Master's in the same field with 1+ years of educational or work experience .

Your experience describe above must be in the following:

  • Linux experience with shell scripting.
  • Python, Perl, or C/C++ skills
  • RTL/Verification CAD tools

Debugging across RTL, automation flows, and software/tool interactions. *

Preferred Qualifications and Experience:

  • Troubleshoot EDA tools and design environments
  • Experience with major EDA tools (VC_SpyGlass, VCS, Questasim, coverage/low-power tools).
  • Experience with CAD/EDA automation (simulation/emulation flows, verification integration, CI/CD).
  • Experience with AI Development environments such as GitHub/Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor.
  • Experience supporting RTL build and simulation/verification workflows.
  • Experience working with EDA vendors (issue triage, features, debugging).
  • Multi-domain debugging (RTL, testbench, tools, scripts, infrastructure).
  • Cloud compute experience (scaling sim farms, resource optimization).
  • DevOps for hardware (regressions, CI/CD, monitoring/alerting).

Verilog/SystemVerilog. *

Job Type:

Experienced Hire Shift:

Shift 1 (United States of America) Primary Location:

US, Texas, Austin Additional Locations:

US, Oregon, Hillsboro Posting Statement:

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military and veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, gender, gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by local law, regulation, or ordinance. Position of Trust

N/A Benefits

We offer a total compensation package that ranks among the best in the industry. It consists of competitive pay, stock bonuses, and benefit programs which include health, retirement, and vacation. Find out more about the benefits of working at Intel .

Annual Salary Range for jobs which could be performed in the US: $122,440.00-232,190.00 USD

The range displayed on this job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target compensation for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific compensation range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

Work Model for this Role

This role will be eligible for our hybrid work model which allows employees to split their time between working on-site at their assigned Intel site and off-site. * Job posting details (such as work model, location or time type) are subject to change. *

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Intel is committed to Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) compliance and ethical hiring practices. We do not charge any fees during our hiring process. Candidates should never be required to pay recruitment fees, medical examination fees, or any other charges as a condition of employment. If you are asked to pay any fees during our hiring process, please report this immediately to your recruiter.

Salary Context

This $122K-$232K range is above the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $175K across 1356 roles with salary data).

View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →

Role Details

Title • AI/ML CAD Engineer, RTL & Design Verification
Location Austin, TX, US
Category AI/ML Engineer
Experience Mid Level
Salary $122K - $232K
Remote No

About This Role

AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.

Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.

Across the 8,943 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 75% of the market. At Intel Corporation, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

What the Work Looks Like

A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

Skills Required

Claude (4% of roles) Python (16% of roles)

Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.

Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.

Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.

Compensation Benchmarks

AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $212,000 based on 11,866 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $193,200. This role's midpoint ($177K) sits 16% below the category median. Disclosed range: $122K to $232K.

Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,380. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,148. The 90th percentile reaches $319,310. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($253,100) and Research Engineer ($252,000). By seniority level: Entry: $110,408; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $228,700; Director: $272,250; VP: $235,000.

Intel Corporation AI Hiring

Intel Corporation has 3 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Positions span Santa Clara, CA, US, Hillsboro, OR, US, Austin, TX, US. Compensation range: $170K - $315K.

Location Context

AI roles in Austin pay a median of $207,800 across 271 tracked positions. That's 3% below the national median.

Career Path

Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.

From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.

The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.

What to Expect in Interviews

Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.

When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.

AI Hiring Overview

The AI job market has 8,943 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 175 entry-level, 4,132 mid-level, 3,268 senior, and 1,368 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (521 positions). The remaining 8,351 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.

The market median for AI roles is $213,380. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,148. The 90th percentile reaches $319,310. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($253,100 median, 57 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 419 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 51 roles).

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

The AI Job Market Today

The AI job market spans 8,943 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (6,739), AI Product Manager (403), AI Software Engineer (402). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.

The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (175) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,132) and senior (3,268) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 1,368 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.

Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (521 positions), with 8,351 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.

AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $213,380. Top-quartile roles start at $264,148, and the 90th percentile reaches $319,310. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.

Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $253,100 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $141,440. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.

The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,422 postings), Aws (808 postings), Azure (638 postings), Rag (555 postings), Gcp (457 postings), Pytorch (433 postings), Claude (341 postings), Kubernetes (337 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Based on 11,866 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for AI/ML Engineer positions is $212,000. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
About 6% of the 8,943 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
Intel Corporation is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from AI/ML Engineer positions include ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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