How To Become An Asic Design Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is an asic design engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted Expert

Min Song

ASIC design engineers are IT professionals specialized in application-specific integrated circuits used for specific purposes. They plan, implement, and maintain these systems working as members of IT engineer teams.

You will be dealing with tasks such as RTL design, function definition, specification, simulation, verification and testing of digital functions, and many more. You will have an intimate relationship with power distribution architecture and validation methodologies, flow automation scripts, extraction, STA methods, and many more.

A degree will be useful to have unless you are a passionate autodidact. Employers are generally looking for seasoned experts to fill this role, so years of experience on the job will also likely be a requirement. Your skills will be handsomely appreciated, with average annual salaries to be expected around $111,000.

What general advice would you give to an Asic Design Engineer?

Min Song

Professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology

Well, first, it’s important to be aware of typical salary ranges within the field and for the company extending an offer in particular, with that knowledge individuals can negotiate to maximize their compensation package. Generally speaking, the job description is great place to start to understand your competitiveness as a candidate and how to make the case for higher compensation. You might not possess all the skills on the list, but you must trust yourself that you will acquire all the needed skills and convince the employer that you will excel in performing the job and thus merit a higher starting salary. One way to earn a salary raise is to continuously improve your skillset, expand your knowledge base, and keep up with the state-of-the-art technology in your field. Another way is to build your professional network and identity, which can lead to promotions or a better job opportunity.

ScoreAsic Design EngineerUS Average

Salary

7.8

Avg. Salary $109,252

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

5.7

Growth Rate 3%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.18%

Asian 24.83%

Black or African American 4.13%

Hispanic or Latino 8.97%

Unknown 4.56%

White 57.32%

Gender

female 11.68%

male 88.32%

Age - 44

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 44

Stress Level

5.7

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

8.3

Complexity Level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

7.2

Work Life balance is good

6.4 - fair

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Key steps to become an asic design engineer

Explore asic design engineer education requirements

Most common asic design engineer degrees

Bachelor's

64.1 %

Master's

31.4 %

Doctorate

3.1 %

Start to develop specific asic design engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Architecture	9.29%
SOC	6.56%
Rtl Design	6.27%
FPGA	5.15%
C++	4.84%

Complete relevant asic design engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-2 years on post-employment, on-the-job training. New asic design engineers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an asic design engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real asic design engineer resumes.

Research asic design engineer duties and responsibilities

Manage DFT, DFM of LCB/library cells.
Lead internal adoption of new SystemVerilog language features within the above block.
Manage tool issue tracking list and conduct status update meetings with EDA vendor.
Manage some minor tasks along the project cycle including manual routes, debugging, and flow development.

Prepare your asic design engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your asic design engineer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an asic design engineer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

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Apply for asic design engineer jobs

Now it's time to start searching for an asic design engineer job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

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