Senior Lead Engineer, Test Development

Celestica•San Jose, CA

About The Position

Celestica is seeking a Senior Lead Engineer to provide technical leadership in validating and characterizing complex, high-performance hardware platforms. The role focuses on signal integrity, high-speed interface validation, power delivery and integrity testing, and system-level hardware validation. The engineer will define validation strategies, develop test methodologies, conduct electrical characterization, troubleshoot hardware issues, and drive issues to root cause and resolution throughout product development. The role works closely with hardware design, signal integrity, power, firmware, manufacturing, customer engineering, and other cross-functional teams. The Senior Lead Engineer serves as a technical authority for hardware test and validation, establishing robust methods and providing direction to engineering teams. The individual independently tackles ambiguous and complex hardware problems, influences design decisions through measurement and analysis, mentors engineers, and helps ensure products meet performance, quality, reliability, and customer requirements. The position also supports design reviews, engineering builds, qualification, manufacturing introduction, product release, and continuous improvement of validation processes and laboratory capabilities.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Typically 8+ years of relevant hardware design, validation, signal integrity, or electrical characterization experience, with demonstrated technical leadership; the posting also lists typical experience as 7 to 10 years.
Strong understanding of high-speed digital design and signal integrity fundamentals, including transmission lines, impedance, reflections, loss, jitter, crosstalk, equalization, and timing margins.
Hands-on experience validating high-speed interfaces such as PCIe and Ethernet.
Strong understanding of power delivery and power integrity, including DC/DC regulation, PDN behavior, transient response, ripple/noise, sequencing, and high-current power rails.
Extensive hands-on experience with high-speed laboratory instrumentation and measurement techniques.
Ability to interpret schematics, PCB layouts, datasheets, specifications, and high-speed interface requirements.
Strong hardware debugging and root-cause-analysis skills spanning board- and system-level issues.
Strong analytical, documentation, and technical communication skills.
Demonstrated ability to lead complex technical investigations and collaborate effectively across engineering disciplines and geographically distributed teams.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree.
Experience with additional SerDes-based protocols.
Experience developing test automation using Python or similar scripting/programming languages.
Experience with compliance test methodologies, high-speed protocol analyzers, and automated validation environments.
PCIe Gen4/Gen5/Gen6 electrical validation and debug experience.
High-speed Ethernet experience, including 25G/50G/100G/200G/400G/800G technologies.
PAM4 and NRZ signaling experience.
SerDes characterization and link-margin analysis.
Eye diagram, jitter, BER, and bathtub-curve measurement experience.
S-parameter measurements and VNA-based channel characterization.
TDR/TDT measurements and impedance characterization.
Power integrity and PDN characterization.
Experience with high-current CPU, GPU, ASIC, FPGA, or accelerator power rails.
Oscilloscope-based power-rail noise and transient measurements.
Protocol and link-layer debugging experience.
Python-based laboratory automation and data analysis.
Experience with server, networking, storage, AI/ML, or other high-performance computing hardware.

Responsibilities

Lead development and execution of hardware validation and characterization plans for complex compute, networking, storage, and high-speed digital platforms.
Define test strategies, methodologies, coverage, acceptance criteria, and procedures based on engineering specifications and product requirements.
Perform signal integrity validation and characterization of high-speed interfaces, including eye diagrams, jitter, timing margins, channel performance, insertion and return loss, and crosstalk.
Validate high-speed serial interfaces and protocols such as PCIe, Ethernet, SerDes, and other interconnect technologies.
Perform PCIe electrical validation across applicable generations, including transmitter and receiver characterization, link-margin analysis, compliance-oriented testing, and system-level troubleshooting.
Perform Ethernet electrical and system-level validation across applicable speeds and interface technologies.
Conduct power integrity and power delivery testing, including voltage regulation, ripple and noise, transient response, load regulation, sequencing, rail stability, current consumption, and power efficiency.
Characterize system power behavior under dynamic workloads and worst-case operating conditions.
Use advanced laboratory equipment to conduct measurements and validation.
Develop repeatable test setups and automation to improve validation coverage, efficiency, data collection, and analysis.
Debug complex electrical and system-level issues involving PCB design, high-speed interfaces, power delivery networks, connectors, cables, components, firmware, and system interactions.
Perform structured root-cause analysis and work with design teams to identify and implement corrective actions.
Review schematics, PCB layouts, design specifications, simulation results, and component documentation to identify validation requirements and potential design risks.
Correlate laboratory measurements with signal-integrity and power-integrity simulations and design expectations.
Analyze test data, identify trends and margin risks, and communicate results through reports, dashboards, and technical reviews.
Provide technical leadership and mentorship to hardware validation engineers and technicians.
Partner with cross-functional engineering teams and customers to resolve technically complex product issues.
Support design reviews, engineering builds, qualification activities, manufacturing introduction, and product release.
Drive continuous improvement of hardware validation processes, laboratory capabilities, automation, and engineering best practices.
Independently investigate complex hardware problems, influence design decisions through measurement and analysis, and help ensure products meet performance, quality, reliability, and customer requirements.