About SLM
SLM is a compute infrastructure company building supercapability systems. We're developing new classes of high-performance architectures that deliver advanced performance, precision, and physical resilience in environments conditioned by hard physics. Many of our operating conditions are where conventional computing fails: harsh environments orders of magnitude beyond what commercial electronics are designed for, temperature extremes, and reliability requirements that make every device physics decision critical.
Our systems need to survive and perform in particle radiation fields that cause ionization damage, displacement damage, and single-event effects in rapid succession. Incremental hardening of existing designs proves incompatible in our system’s operating settings, and we have to have robust understanding of device behavior at the physics level and build from that foundation. We're working at advanced process nodes where response to harsh physical conditions isn't fully characterized, integrating specialized memory technologies with complex radiation sensitivities, and validating everything through comprehensive test campaigns before deployment in environments where failure isn't recoverable.
Our principal capabilities have been specified and designed over three years of applied R&D, and we're now building production systems for scientific instrumentation with deployment deadlines measured in months instead of years. You'll work on circuit-level challenges that determine the entire system’s operational success across performance and reliability in extreme environments.
About this role
You'll design analog and mixed-signal control circuits using gallium nitride (GaN)-like high electron mobility transistors that operate reliably in extreme radiation and temperature environments — circuits that enable our advanced processor architecture to function when silicon-based control logic would fail.
This means designing gate drivers, power management circuits, voltage regulators, bias generators, and analog interfaces using GaN-like HEMTs instead of conventional CMOS. You'll work with wide-bandgap devices that have very different characteristics from silicon: higher threshold voltages, different gate capacitances, temperature-dependent behavior that doesn't follow familiar models. You'll design circuits that maintain stable operation from cryogenic temperatures to several hundred degrees Celsius, that tolerate radiation-induced threshold shifts and leakage current increases, and that provide the control signals our digital logic requires with nanosecond-level timing accuracy.
The technical challenges combine analog circuit design intuition with device physics understanding. You need to design for worst-case device parameter variations that are larger than in mature silicon processes, implement temperature compensation techniques that work across extreme ranges, and create radiation-tolerant bias circuits that remain stable as device characteristics drift. You'll work without the extensive library of characterized IP that exists for silicon — instead, you'll design from first principles, validate through simulation and characterization, and iterate when testing reveals behavior your models didn't capture.
You'll collaborate extensively with the device physics team on understanding GaN-like HEMT behavior and obtaining device models, with foundry partners who may be developing GaN-like processes but don't have extensive circuit design experience, with the digital design team on interface specifications and timing requirements, with the test team on characterizing circuit performance across temperature and radiation exposure. You'll spend time in circuit simulation tools, time reviewing device characterization data to validate models, time debugging circuits that don't behave as expected, and time at test facilities when your circuits need radiation qualification.
The work requires both creative circuit design and methodical characterization. You'll develop novel circuit topologies that exploit GaN's capabilities while mitigating its limitations, implement compensation techniques that maintain performance across environmental extremes, and create test structures that efficiently characterize circuit behavior. When standard techniques don't work, you'll invent new approaches informed by device physics and validated through testing.
What we're looking for
- Strong analog and mixed-signal circuit design background with experience designing circuits in non-standard processes or with novel devices.
- You've designed gate drivers, bias circuits, voltage references, or other analog blocks that actually worked in silicon.
- You understand device physics well enough to adapt your design approach when working with devices that behave differently from conventional MOSFETs.
- You're comfortable with SPICE simulation, circuit analysis, and the practical aspects of getting analog circuits to work reliably.
Experience with wide-bandgap devices (GaN, SiC), high-temperature electronics, or special physical-resiliency-optimized circuits is directly applicable. If you've designed power electronics, RF circuits, or other applications using GaN-like HEMTs, you understand the device characteristics we're working with. Familiarity with extreme environment constraints — wide temperature ranges, radiation effects, reliability requirements — helps contextualize the design challenges. Strong understanding of device physics and comfort reading device characterization data are essential.
We're looking for someone who combines circuit design creativity with pragmatic engineering judgment, who can work effectively despite incomplete device models and limited characterized IP, and who stays engaged through the characterization and iteration cycles required when working with emerging technologies.
What we offer
As an early team member, you'll shape capabilities and systems with first-order consequences for the future and direction of humanity's enterprise.
This is accompanied by a strong equity package, competitive base salary, and comprehensive benefits including enhanced healthcare coverage for you and your family, robust family planning support, life insurance, flexible time off and paid holidays, retirement plans with matching, daily meals at our headquarters, and relocation support.
Our primary operational base is set in the Bay Area, and our labs are headquartered in a part of the city set beside cypress groves and coastal trails. Think natural light, fresh ocean air, and panoramic views. We work intensely but deliberately invest in removing avoidable frictions from your life so you can dedicate maximum bandwidth to your core work.
If we make you an offer, we will work hard to get you onto our team and can even sponsor visas and green cards once eligible.
We strongly encourage you to apply even if you feel you don't meet every qualification or attribute as described. We care more about evidence of strong ability and a high signal-to-noise ratio.
Role details
- Category: Analog & Circuit Design
- Role: Analog Design Engineer (GaN/Wide-Bandgap)
- Work type: On-site
- Employment: Full-time
- Location: Bay Area, California
- Salary range: $190,000 - $270,000