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 prove 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 radiation response 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 device-level challenges that determine the entire system’s operational success: characterizing response to harsh environmental conditions, developing predictive models, defining design rules that don't exist in standard foundry documentation.
About this role
You'll lead device-level analysis and modeling of semiconductor behavior in extreme environments — understanding how transistors, interconnects, and dielectrics respond to total ionizing dose, displacement damage, and single-event effects that occur continuously throughout operational lifetime.
This means designing and executing comprehensive electrical characterization campaigns. You'll measure device parameters before and after radiation exposure, characterize threshold voltage shifts and leakage current increases from total ionizing dose, measure single-event cross-sections using heavy ion beams, and analyze displacement damage effects from proton or neutron irradiation. You'll work with radiation test facilities — cyclotrons, linear accelerators, research reactors — to expose devices to particle spectra that match the operational environment.
You'll develop predictive models that allow circuit designers to anticipate device behavior without testing every possible design variant. This means understanding the physical mechanisms behind radiation-induced degradation: charge trapping in oxides, interface state generation, displacement of lattice atoms, creation of charge collection volumes that cause single-event effects. You'll translate this physics understanding into compact models or design rules that other teams can use, working with foundry partners when standard models don't capture radiation response accurately.
The work combines experimental physics with practical engineering. You'll spend time at test facilities conducting harsh-condition experiments, time analyzing electrical measurements to extract device parameters, time developing physics-based models that predict behavior, and time working with circuit designers to implement mitigation strategies. You'll collaborate with the foundry on process development when standard processes don't meet physical-resiliency requirements, with the physical design team on layout techniques that reduce sensitivity to harsh physical conditions, with the system architects when device-level constraints affect what the system can do.
What we're looking for
- PhD in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, or Materials Science with deep expertise in semiconductor device physics.
- You understand transistor operation at the fundamental level, not just IV curves but the underlying carrier transport physics, oxide physics, and interface behavior that determine device characteristics.
- You've probably conducted electrical characterization using parameter analyzers, curve tracers, or specialized test equipment.
- You're comfortable with TCAD simulation tools or compact modeling approaches.
Experience with radiation effects characterization is critical: total ionizing dose testing, single-event effects testing, or displacement damage analysis. You understand the experimental techniques used to characterize radiation response and the physics behind different radiation damage mechanisms. If you've worked with advanced process nodes (finFETs, gate-all-around) or emerging devices (ferroelectric, resistive memory), you understand the additional complexity these technologies bring.
We're looking for someone who combines scientific rigor with practical engineering focus, who can design experiments that answer specific questions efficiently, and who communicates clearly about device-level constraints and uncertainties to non-specialists who need to make architecture decisions.
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: Device Physics & Characterization
- Role: Device Physicist
- Work type: On-site
- Employment: Full-time
- Location: Bay Area, California
- Salary range: $200,000 - $280,000