Principal Product Application Engineer - Scorpio

Astera Labs•Vancouver, BC

About The Position

As a Principal Product Applications Engineer at Astera Labs, you will be at the forefront of enabling the world's leading cloud service providers and server/network OEMs to successfully deploy connectivity solutions. This high-impact role sits at the intersection of cutting-edge silicon, firmware, and customer success—where you'll tackle complex technical challenges that push the boundaries of AI infrastructure connectivity. You will serve as a trusted technical advisor to strategic customers, guiding them through design-in, bring-up, and optimization of Astera Labs products. With a strong firmware orientation, you'll dive deep into embedded systems, debug intricate firmware-hardware interactions, and drive issues to resolution across the full stack. Your insights from the field will directly influence product roadmaps and engineering priorities, making you a critical bridge between customers and our R&D teams. This is an opportunity to work on industry-defining connectivity products that power next-generation data centers and AI platforms—all within a fast-paced, hypergrowth environment where your contributions have immediate and visible impact.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field
8+ years of experience in product applications, field applications, or systems engineering roles supporting complex semiconductor products
Strong firmware development and debugging skills, including proficiency in embedded C and Python
Experience with high-speed interfaces such as PCIe Gen5/6/7 or Ethernet
Demonstrated ability to triage and resolve multi-layer issues spanning silicon, firmware, and system environments
Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a track record of producing clear technical documentation

Nice To Haves

Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field
Experience with Ethernet products, retimers, or PCIe connectivity solutions
Hands-on experience with protocol analyzers, high-speed oscilloscopes, and BERTs
Background working directly with cloud service providers, server OEMs, or networking equipment manufacturers
Understanding of data center architectures including servers, AI platforms, JBOGs/JBODs, and network switches
Familiarity with physical layer concepts and signal integrity fundamentals

Responsibilities

Provide expert technical guidance to tier-1 customers throughout the design-in lifecycle, from early evaluation through production deployment
Build trusted relationships with customer engineering teams, serving as the go-to resource for product integration
Deliver technical presentations, training sessions, and design reviews to accelerate customer success
Investigate and reproduce customer-reported issues involving firmware, silicon, hardware design, and system-level interactions
Drive root cause analysis and coordinate cross-functional teams to deliver timely resolutions
Develop firmware-based tools, scripts, and utilities to streamline debug and validation workflows
Create high-quality application notes, integration guides, and technical documentation for internal and external audiences
Provide actionable feedback to product, firmware, and silicon teams to continuously improve products and customer experience
Contribute to the development of reference designs and best practices for product deployment
Execute hands-on silicon and system bring-up activities, including firmware validation and performance characterization
Utilize lab equipment such as protocol analyzers, high-speed oscilloscopes, and traffic generators to diagnose complex issues
Support interoperability testing across diverse customer platforms and configurations