Hardware Senior Principal Engineer

Qualifications

• Compensation
• Dell is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The salary range for this position is $187k - $242k.
• Benefits and Perks of working at Dell Technologies
• Your life. Your health. Supported by your benefits. You can explore the overall benefits experience that awaits you as a Dell Technologies team member — right now at MyWellatDell.com
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• Bachelor’s in Electrical/Computer Engineering (or equivalent) with 12+ years of PCB layout and design experience on complex, high-speed, multi-layer boards through production
• Cadence Expertise: Advanced proficiency with Cadence Allegro PCB Designer, Constraint Manager, System Capture, and/or OrCAD Capture
• Technical Depth: Strong knowledge of high-speed PCB design, stackups, signal/power integrity, IPC standards, and PCB fabrication/assembly processes
• Automation & AI: Experience leveraging AI-assisted design tools, agentic workflows, and eCAD automation/scripting (SKILL, Python, Tcl, APIs/MCP) to improve engineering efficiency
• Leadership & Collaboration: Proven success driving design standards, process improvements, and technical leadership across global teams, with experience using PLM systems and managed component libraries
• Desirable Requirements
• Previous experience leading PCB layout teams or driving process transformation initiatives at scale
• Genuine enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and the conviction that the hardware development process can — and should — be reinvented

Responsibilities

• Join us as a Senior Principal Engineer – eCAD PCB Layout on our Core Hardware Electrical Engineering team in Round Rock, Texas to do the best work of your career and make a profound social impact.
• We are seeking a passionate and visionary Hardware Senior Principal Engineer to lead PCB layout and to define the eCAD design processes behind our electronic products. You will own our most complex, highest-speed board layouts in Cadence Allegro PCB Designer and System Capture, set the layout standards, workflows, and tooling the entire organization relies on, and lead the modernization of PCB layout and the broader hardware development flow through AI and agentic workflows.
• This is a build-the-future role. Dell ISG is advancing PCB layout through a multi-stage automation framework — Library, Placement, Fan Out, Rules & Routing, Modem Readiness & Release — powered by leading industry design tools and bound together by Dell’s cutting-edge AI. You will be the technical leader who takes this the rest of the way, partnering with electrical, mechanical, signal and power integrity, thermal, and manufacturing engineering, and with suppliers from concept through production — turning layout from a serialized, manual craft into a connected, model-driven, continuously validated discipline.
• You will:
• Own and lead the layout of our most complex, high-density, high-speed multi-layer PCBs — from placement and routing through fabrication and assembly release — on the platforms that define Dell’s Enterprise AI compute, storage, and networking portfolio
• Define stackup, placement, routing, and constraint strategies in partnership with electrical, signal and power integrity, thermal, and mechanical engineering, so that architectural intent translates fully intact all the way from specification to the fabrication drawing
• Lead design reviews and hold the line on Dell standards, IPC requirements, and DFM, DFA, and DFT guidelines, always chasing the best answer to ensure maximum product performance and quality at optimized cost
• Serve as the technical authority for PCB layout across the Core Hardware Electrical Engineering team, mentoring designers and engineers and codifying your expertise so that it scales far beyond any one person
• Create and own the PCB layout processes, standards, checklists, templates, and documentation used across the organization — treating the workflow itself as a product you ship, measure, and improve
• Lead the clean-sheet reimagination of the PCB layout and hardware development flow: find the bottlenecks, delete the steps that no longer earn their place, and replace manual execution with automation
• Drive the multi-stage layout automation framework from Library through Release, including AI-assisted placement, constraint-driven fan out with HDI and via rules, agentic net scheduling, and automated review with automatic issue creation
• Evaluate and deploy new eCAD tools, features, and methods; influence our tool providers’ roadmaps through direct Dell feedback; and own tool upgrades and rollouts end-to-end
• Design, build, and deploy AI-assisted and agentic workflows for layout tasks such as constraint setup, design rule checking, design review, and manufacturing output generation — collapsing place → DRC → fix → re-check loops that take hours today into seconds tomorrow
• Advance our vision of Hardware Agents for CAD, to achieve design outcomes headlessly from structured intent rather than from GUI clicks, with version-linked changes and human review gates at every decision point
• Connect layout to all other design artifacts, so that Gerbers, manufacturing files, production BOMs, and power and thermal analyses become living derivatives of a single source of truth rather than disconnected snapshots — shifting validation left and reducing prototype turns
• Partner with CAD, IT, and software teams to integrate AI tooling with eCAD, PLM, and library systems through programmatic APIs, and measure the realized impact on cycle time and quality
• Champion AI adoption across the team within our culture of apprenticeship — learn, learn, learn; teach, teach, teach — so that every engineer and designer becomes a force multiplier and the knowledge compounds.
• Partner with Electrical, Mechanical, Signal Integrity, Thermal, Manufacturing, and Supply Chain teams, and lead the technical relationship with our PCB fabrication and assembly suppliers
• Support new technology introductions and lead the resolution of layout-related build, test, and manufacturing issues
• Strengthen Dell’s positioning via increased technical differentiation, architectural building block leverage, and innovation in our offering roadmaps
• Take the first step towards your dream career
• Every Dell Technologies team member brings something unique to the table. Here’s what we are looking for with this role:
• Education & Experience: Bachelor’s in Electrical/Computer Engineering (or equivalent) with 12+ years of PCB layout and design experience on complex, high-speed, multi-layer boards through production
• Cadence Expertise: Advanced proficiency with Cadence Allegro PCB Designer, Constraint Manager, System Capture, and/or OrCAD Capture
• Technical Depth: Strong knowledge of high-speed PCB design, stackups, signal/power integrity, IPC standards, and PCB fabrication/assembly processes
• Automation & AI: Experience leveraging AI-assisted design tools, agentic workflows, and eCAD automation/scripting (SKILL, Python, Tcl, APIs/MCP) to improve engineering efficiency
• Leadership & Collaboration: Proven success driving design standards, process improvements, and technical leadership across global teams, with experience using PLM systems and managed component libraries
• Previous experience leading PCB layout teams or driving process transformation initiatives at scale
• Genuine enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and the conviction that the hardware development process can — and should — be reinvented

What you’ll achieve

Essential Requirements