Principal Electrical Design Engineer
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- San Jose, California, United States
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Principal
- Employment
- Contract
- Experience
- 12+ years
- Category
- Engineering design
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a closely related field; advanced degree preferred
- 12+ years of progressive hardware design experience with deep expertise in board-level electrical engineering and demonstrated technical leadership across multiple product generations
- Extensive track record of architecting and delivering production hardware for server, networking, storage, or high-performance compute systems at scale
- Expert-level experience with high-speed SerDes-based systems supporting Ethernet, PCIe, or related protocols; deep hands-on experience with 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 layout review for high-speed interfac
- Expert power integrity and PDN design knowledge including advanced sequencing, decoupling strategies, transient response optimization, and power architecture tradeoffs at system level
- Mastery of industry-standard schematic capture and PCB design and review tools such as Cadence Allegro or OrCAD
- Proven track record leading 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 have
- 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 compliance and validation workflows for PCIe and Ethernet platforms, 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
Full description
Astera Labs (NASDAQ: ALAB) provides rack-scale AI infrastructure through purpose-built connectivity solutions. By collaborating with hyperscalers and ecosystem partners, Astera Labs enables organizations to unlock the full potential of modern AI. Astera Labs’ Intelligent Connectivity Platform integrates CXL®, Ethernet, NVLink, PCIe®, and UALink™ semiconductor-based technologies with the company’s COSMOS software suite to unify diverse components into cohesive, flexible systems that deliver end-to-end scale-up, and scale-out connectivity. The company’s custom connectivity solutions business complements its standards-based portfolio, enabling customers to deploy tailored architectures to meet their unique infrastructure requirements. Discover more at .
Job Description
Principal Electrical Design Engineer
Board Hardware Engineering
About the Role
We are seeking a Principal Electrical Design Engineer to define and drive the architecture, design, and technical strategy for advanced board-level hardware across next-generation networking and high-performance connectivity platforms. This role encompasses complex hardware systems including chassis boards, NIC cards, PCIe Gen6 platforms, and 800G Ethernet products.
This is a principal-level technical leadership role requiring deep domain expertise, strategic vision, and organizational influence. You will set the technical direction for board architecture, establish design methodologies, drive innovation in high-speed system design, and serve as the top technical authority across multiple programs. You will partner with and influence silicon, SI/PI, mechanical, firmware, manufacturing, system, and executive teams to deliver industry-leading products from concept through production and beyond.
Key Responsibilities
Technical Strategy and Architecture Leadership
- Define and own the board-level hardware architecture and technical roadmap across multiple product lines and platform generations
- Establish design standards, methodologies, and best practices that scale across the hardware engineering organization
- Drive architectural tradeoff decisions for complex multi-layer PCBs integrating high-speed digital, analog, and mixed-signal circuitry, balancing performance, cost, schedule, and manufacturability
- Get involved and drive discussions on stack-up strategy, impedance optimization and other SI relates development work
- Own power delivery architecture strategy including multi-rail regulation topologies, advanced sequencing schemes, transient response optimization, protection philosophies, and power budgeting across platform generations
- Define and evolve hardware implementation strategies for management and control interfaces such as I2C, SPI, GPIO, MDIO, and debug and observability architectures