ASIC Validation Engineer

Responsibilities

• Bring up new silicon on bench platforms, evaluation boards, and system hardware
• Debug issues across ASIC, board, firmware, and system interactions
• Develop bench tests, scripts, and tools to exercise silicon features and collect data
• Build and maintain test setups including lab automation, instrumentation, and fixtures
• Partner with ASIC designers to validate functionality and root-cause failures
• Work with system engineers to ensure silicon performs correctly in target system environments
• Generate and analyze data to support design decisions, characterization, and bring-up
• Create lightweight, reusable test workflows and documentation
• Support early manufacturing efforts with practical validation and debug

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or related field
• 4+ years of experience in silicon validation, hardware test, or related roles
• Strong hands-on experience in a lab environment
• Solid understanding of digital systems and basic analog concepts
• Experience writing scripts or tools, preferably Python, for test and data analysis
• Ability to debug issues spanning multiple layers (ASIC, board, and system)
• Clear communication skills and ability to work with cross-functional teams

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with ASIC or FPGA bring-up and validation
• Familiarity with common interfaces such as SPI, I2C, JTAG, and UART
• Experience using lab equipment like oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and power supplies
• Exposure to high-performance, power-dense systems
• Experience building test automation or internal tooling
• Familiarity with data analysis and visualization

About the Company

Proto is building Bitkey, a safe self-custody bitcoin wallet, and developing hardware and software to decentralize bitcoin mining. As part of Block, Proto's Bitcoin Products team delivers the software, firmware, and custom silicon needed to make these ambitious mining initiatives a reality.