Hardware Principal Engineer

Dell Technologies•Hopkinton, MA

2h•$161,500 - $209,000

About The Position

Dell is hiring a Hardware Principal Engineer for its Systems Development Engineering team in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. The role focuses on building and validating ruggedized servers designed to operate reliably in telecom and far-edge environments. The engineer will configure, integrate, and perform system-level validation of next-generation hardware for telco deployment, while representing customer needs in global product development. The role also involves diagnosing complex issues across hardware, firmware, BIOS, management controllers, and operating systems, and collaborating with product, marketing, account, and global engineering teams.

Requirements

At least 8 years of related professional experience with a bachelor's degree, 6 years with a master's degree, 3 years with a PhD, or equivalent experience.
Knowledge of computer architecture, such as x86 or ARM.
Knowledge of electrical engineering and hardware development, including motherboards, PCIe, and DDR.
Skills in hardware and firmware diagnostics and troubleshooting.
Experience with server hardware configurations, such as rack or blade servers.
Ability to develop and execute test strategies.
Knowledge of system-level validation and testing across hardware, firmware, BIOS, and operating systems.
Knowledge of environmental, thermal, and EMC/regulatory validation, such as NEBS, ETSI, or MIL-STD.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience validating server hardware, including firmware, BIOS, and BMC bring-up, operating-system deployment, and multi-layer system diagnostics.
Exposure to ruggedized, telecom, or edge platforms.
Familiarity with NEBS, ETSI, or MIL-STD environmental and EMC requirements.
Experience installing, configuring, and troubleshooting operating systems such as Windows or Linux.

Responsibilities

Configure, build, and test ruggedized server configurations in a hands-on lab to address emerging telecom and far-edge customer requirements.
Develop and execute system-level test and validation plans for new server products.
Deploy and validate firmware, BIOS, BMC, and operating-system stacks across new hardware configurations.
Translate ambiguous customer issues into actionable validation plans, execute the plans, diagnose root causes, and provide clear solution recommendations.
Represent telco and service-provider customer needs in technical requirements discussions with global engineering teams.
Work with product management, technical marketing, and account teams to surface, confirm, and resolve customer deployment challenges.
Prioritize concurrent validation workloads across stakeholders and program deadlines.
Apply systems-level expertise across hardware, firmware, BIOS, management controllers, and operating systems to resolve integration and validation challenges.
Account for thermal, power, shock, vibration, and space constraints when diagnosing problems in ruggedized environments.
Guide the development of validation methodologies for ruggedized platforms.
Convert high-level direction or ambiguous customer issues into structured plans with actions, milestones, and success criteria.
Perform root-cause analysis of complex systems failures spanning hardware, firmware, BIOS, BMC, operating systems, and deployment environments.
Select and adapt methods and evaluation criteria to reach well-supported conclusions.
Collaborate with peers and distributed global engineering teams.
Communicate technical findings, trade-offs, and recommendations to engineering and non-engineering audiences.