--- title: 'Special Projects at Voltai' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/special-projects-voltai-palo-alto-7vwkwgaa9mrw' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-08' --- # Special Projects at Voltai - **Company:** Voltai - **Location:** Palo Alto, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-03-16 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/voltai.careers/341ea0cd-8510-485e-b11a-cf68c39485b2 ## Job description ## About Voltai Voltai is developing models and agents that learn, evaluate, plan, experiment, and interact with the physical world. We are starting out with understanding and building hardware: electronics systems and semiconductors where AI can design beyond human cognitive limits. ## About the Team Backed by Silicon Valley’s top investors, Stanford University, and CEOs/Presidents of Google, AMD, Broadcom, Marvell, etc. We are a team of previous Stanford professors, SAIL researchers, Olympiad medalists (IPhO, IOI, etc.), CTOs of Synopsys & GlobalFoundries, Head of Sales & CRO of Cadence, former US Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor, and Senior Foreign-Policy Advisor to four US presidents. ## About you You are an executor. Getting things done is your middle name. You own projects end to end–whether you were the originator of the idea, it came from leadership, or the project is part way through and now under your jurisdiction. You make sure that the final outcome is delivered to a T. ## About your role You work directly with leadership, operate with minimal overhead, and are expected to take a problem from zero to done. You will be parachuting into wherever the highest-leverage work is and owning it completely. You identify the right tools, learn them fast, and maximize your effectiveness. You are scrappy. You are fast. You are energized by the pace of a fast-moving startup. If you want a clearly scoped role with a steady rhythm, this isn't it. If you want high ownership, direct exposure to leadership, and the chance to build something that actually moves the needle, this is that role. ## Your background - Several years of experience in high-ownership roles: research, engineering, VC, startup generalist, or similar - Ability to learn something very technical - Demonstrated ability to run complex, multi-threaded projects independently from start to finish - Hands-on experience with outreach tooling (Lemlist, Hunter, Clay, Apollo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, etc.) or the ability to learn them quickly - Strong design and presentation skills, able to produce compelling materials quickly - Exceptional written communication, especially executive communications - Comfortable operating in fast-moving environments - Someone who treats "no one has ever done this before" as an invitation, not a reason to share why it might not work Bonus qualifications - Background or genuine interest in hardware, semiconductors, AI infrastructure, or deep tech - Experience with event logistics, field marketing, or pipeline generation - Familiarity with the AI/EDA/chip design ecosystem - Technical background in CS, EE, or a related field ## About Voltai ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Voltai develops AI models and agentic systems that learn, plan, and experiment to design PCBs, ASICs, and other semiconductor/electronics hardware, aiming to surpass human cognitive limits in physical-world engineering. - **Entity Type**: Private (Seed-stage – pre-seed funding round reported in October 2025) - **Headquarters**: Palo Alto, United States (also has presence in Germany) - **Founded**: 2015 (as per Tracxn; recent operational activity suggests a more current iteration) - **Founders**: Not publicly named as co-founders; current CEO is Priyanka Mathikshara (per Tracxn), CSO is Labib Tazwar Rahman (per LinkedIn). The team includes former Stanford professors, SAIL researchers, and alumni from Synopsys, GlobalFoundries, and Cadence. ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: AI for semiconductor and electronics design (hardware design automation) - **Target customers**: B2B – the world’s largest semiconductor companies, consumer electronics makers, automotive OEMs, and sovereign nations - **Mission or purpose statement**: To build superintelligent systems that can reason across the entire hardware-software-manufacturing stack, enabling the next frontier of physical-world engineering. ## Products & Services - **[Voltai AI Platform]**: A suite of AI models and agents that co-design electronics and semiconductors. The system uses world models to run billions of virtual experiments, bypassing the prohibitive cost and time of physical prototyping. Outputs include PCB layouts, ASIC designs, and manufacturing blueprints. (Type: AI/ML SaaS with physical verification) ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed - **Key Metric**: Raised CAD$1.83M in pre-seed funding in October 2025 from Invest Nova Scotia, Cloudberry Pioneer Investments, and others (conflicting with Tracxn’s “unfunded” status – see Sources). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Backed by “Silicon Valley’s top investors”, Stanford University, and executives/CEOs of Google, AMD, and Broadcom (per website). Strategic partners include major semiconductor and consumer electronics firms. - **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew ~600% YoY (from very small base); currently 3–4 employees with 27 active job postings (as of mid-2026). Website claims partnerships with “most of the world’s largest semiconductor companies” and sovereign nations. ## Competitive Advantages - **Domain-specific foundation models**: Unlike general-purpose AI, Voltai’s models are trained on proprietary real-world hardware data and can reason over long horizons (months-to-years design cycles). - **World model simulation**: Runs billions of experiments in silico, a unique capability that reduces the need for costly physical tape-outs. - **Elite talent pool**: Team includes former CTOs of Synopsys and GlobalFoundries, a former US Secretary of Defense, and Olympic medalists (IPhO, IOI) – an unusually deep combination of AI research and semiconductor executive experience. - **Board-level strategic priority**: Already has commitments from top-tier semiconductor and consumer electronics companies, including sovereign nations, giving it rare access and validation. ## Strategic Focus - **Current priorities**: Scaling the AI platform to cover the full electronics stack (from PCB to ASIC to manufacturing); hiring aggressively across research (post-training, CUDA kernel engineering), hardware engineering (system, power, server), and enterprise sales; expanding partnerships with global semiconductor leaders. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Emphasizes high-agency, interdisciplinary work at the intersection of AI and physical engineering. The team includes Olympiad medalists and former CTOs – a “smartest in the room” environment. - **Remote/hybrid policy**: Fully remote (as indicated on Built In and LinkedIn). Employees work from the United States and Germany. - **Notable perks**: Opportunity to work on frontier AI problems with direct impact on the semiconductor industry; access to unrivaled industry partners and compute resources. - **Engineering culture**: Heavy focus on research engineering (CUDA, post-training, systems), with open roles for both software and hardware engineers. Emphasis on real-world validation and iterative experimentation. ## Sources 1. [voltai.com](https://www.voltai.com/) 2. [LinkedIn – Voltai](https://www.linkedin.com/company/voltai-inc) 3. [Built In – Voltai Careers](https://builtin.com/company/voltai) 4. [Tracxn – Voltai Company Profile](https://tracxn.com/d/companies/voltai/__HV-xuXnVpXmBMrSANdeEmHzMlZPWefz9YZpOVAklfDE) 5. [FinSMEs – Voltai Raises CAD$1.83M in Pre-Seed Funding](https://www.finsmes.com) (referenced in search snippet) 6. 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