What Principal Hardware Jobs Ask For
Across 452 open Principal Hardware postings that list skills, the ones mentioned most often are ai, automation, firmware.
Updated October 28, 2026
465 open Principal Hardware postings. The percentages below are measured over the 452 of them that list skills at all.
| Skill | Mentioned in |
|---|---|
| ai | 36% |
| automation | 27% |
| firmware | 25% |
| python | 25% |
| fpga | 23% |
| networking | 22% |
| pcb | 22% |
| ethernet | 19% |
| verilog | 19% |
| cloud | 19% |
| pcie | 17% |
| signal-integrity | 17% |
| cad | 15% |
| oscilloscope | 15% |
| matlab | 15% |
| systemverilog | 14% |
| cmos | 13% |
| assembly | 13% |
| asic | 12% |
| signal-processing | 12% |
| rtl | 12% |
| vhdl | 11% |
| root-cause-analysis | 10% |
| corrective-action | 10% |
| perl | 10% |
| cpp | 10% |
| i2c | 10% |
| program-management | 10% |
| serdes | 9% |
| prototyping | 8% |
| tcl | 8% |
| linux | 8% |
| uvm | 7% |
| machine-learning | 7% |
| sap | 7% |
| agile | 6% |
| agentic-ai | 6% |
| altium | 6% |
| design-for-manufacturing | 6% |
| gpu | 5% |
"Mentioned in" counts postings that name the skill anywhere — including as a nice-to-have — so treat it as the ceiling, not the bar.
Browse 465 open Principal Hardware jobs →
Across all Hardware levels
Most Hardware postings never state a level. This wider list covers them too.
- ai 2,019
- python 1,755
- fpga 1,369
- automation 1,272
- pcb 1,243
- firmware 1,202
- verilog 1,113
- oscilloscope 857
- networking 852
- ethernet 831
- cpp 790
- pcie 779