Principal / Senior Principal Electrical Design Engineer

Astera Labs•San Jose, CA

About The Position

Astera Labs is seeking a Principal Electrical Design Engineer to define and drive architecture, design, and technical strategy for advanced board-level hardware across next-generation networking and high-performance connectivity platforms. The work includes complex hardware systems such as chassis boards, NIC cards, PCIe Gen6 platforms, and 800G Ethernet products. This principal-level technical leadership role sets technical direction for board architecture, establishes design methodologies, advances high-speed system design, and serves as a technical authority across multiple programs. The engineer partners with silicon, SI/PI, mechanical, firmware, manufacturing, system, and executive teams to deliver products from concept through production and beyond. The role owns board-level hardware architecture and roadmap, design standards, schematic and board-level design oversight, power delivery strategies, component qualification, and design-for-excellence initiatives. It also defines platform bring-up and validation strategies, leads root-cause analysis of complex hardware issues, and drives improvements to debug, validation, and failure-analysis processes. The position provides technical escalation and decision-making, mentors senior and lead engineers, and represents hardware engineering in reviews, customer engagements, and industry forums as needed.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a closely related field.
12+ years of progressive hardware design experience, with deep board-level electrical engineering expertise and demonstrated technical leadership across multiple product generations.
Extensive experience architecting and delivering production hardware at scale for server, networking, storage, or high-performance compute systems.
Expert-level experience with high-speed SerDes-based systems supporting Ethernet, PCIe, or related protocols, including hands-on PCIe Gen5/Gen6 and 400G/800G Ethernet system design.
Expert understanding of signal-integrity fundamentals, including impedance control, differential-pair routing, channel-loss optimization, crosstalk mitigation, and high-speed interface layout review.
Expert power-integrity and PDN design knowledge, including sequencing, decoupling strategies, transient response optimization, and system-level power architecture tradeoffs.
Mastery of industry-standard schematic-capture and PCB design and review tools such as Cadence Allegro or OrCAD.
Proven ability to lead hardware bring-up and debug of complex platforms using oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers, and advanced lab instrumentation.
Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams and influence technical direction across organizational boundaries, from architecture through validation and production.
Strong track record of mentoring engineers and elevating team capabilities.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree in Electrical Engineering or a closely related field.
Experience defining architecture for NIC cards, accelerator cards, or other PCIe add-in card platforms across multiple generations.
Experience leading server chassis or system-board design programs in dense, thermally constrained, high-availability environments.
Deep expertise with 800G Ethernet and emerging 1.6T electrical interfaces and system integration challenges.
Experience architecting solutions using retimers, redrivers, advanced clocking architectures, and high-speed interconnect subsystems.
Expertise in PCIe and Ethernet compliance and validation workflows, including contributions to industry specifications or standards bodies.
Experience driving contract-manufacturer relationships, production ramp strategies, and yield optimization for complex hardware products.
Scripting and automation proficiency in Python or similar languages for lab automation, measurement analysis, hardware characterization workflows, and design-flow optimization.
Experience influencing product strategy and roadmap decisions at the organizational level.

Responsibilities

Define and own board-level hardware architecture and technical roadmaps across product lines and platform generations.
Establish design standards, methodologies, and best practices across the hardware engineering organization.
Drive architectural tradeoffs for complex multi-layer PCBs integrating high-speed digital, analog, and mixed-signal circuitry, balancing performance, cost, schedule, and manufacturability.
Drive discussions on stack-up strategy, impedance optimization, and related signal-integrity development work.
Own power-delivery architecture strategy, including regulation topologies, sequencing, transient response, protection, and power budgeting.
Define hardware implementation strategies for management and control interfaces such as I2C, SPI, GPIO, and MDIO, as well as debug and observability architectures.
Own schematic capture and board-level design for complex multi-layer PCBs.
Provide technical authority and oversight for board-level hardware development and designs across server and connectivity platforms, including NIC cards, PCIe add-in cards, and chassis-integrated hardware.
Lead component strategy and qualification roadmaps in partnership with suppliers, sourcing, and manufacturing teams.
Drive design-for-excellence initiatives, including DFT, DFM, and DFR, to improve manufacturability, yield, reliability, and production readiness.
Define and own bring-up and validation strategies for new hardware platforms.
Lead root-cause analysis of escalated hardware issues involving high-speed interfaces, power delivery, clocks, resets, and control paths.
Improve debug methodologies, validation coverage, and failure-analysis processes.
Partner with firmware, software, and system teams to define and validate initialization sequences, telemetry, diagnostics, and platform functionality.
Own corrective-action frameworks and incorporate lessons learned into design standards and review processes.
Serve as the technical escalation point and decision-maker for hardware design challenges across the organization.
Coordinate with SI/PI, mechanical, thermal, firmware, system, and manufacturing teams throughout the product lifecycle, resolving cross-domain technical conflicts.
Interface strategically with silicon vendors and internal ASIC teams on platform architecture, bring-up, errata resolution, compliance, and next-generation readiness.
Mentor and develop senior and lead engineers and raise technical capabilities across the hardware engineering team.
Lead and contribute to design and architectural reviews and technical publications.
Represent the hardware engineering organization in executive reviews, customer engagements, and industry forums as needed.