Director, Pricing Strategy

Astera Labs; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Astera Labs seeks a Director, Pricing Strategy to define and drive global pricing across semiconductor, connectivity, software, and platform solutions. This role centralizes pricing governance, modeling, and strategic decision-making to support profitable growth.

You will partner with Product, Engineering, Sales, Finance, and Executives, influence pricing in complex engagements, and help scale pricing capabilities as the company expands its AI infrastructure offerings.

Qualifications

• Experience developing and executing pricing strategies for semiconductor or technical products.
• Strong financial modeling and business case development capabilities.
• Experience presenting recommendations to executives and influencing decisions.

Responsibilities

• Define pricing and monetization strategies across semiconductor, software, and platform solutions.
• Develop pricing governance, policies, discount frameworks, and approval processes.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Sales, Finance, and Executive Leadership to align pricing with strategy.
• Engage in senior-level pricing discussions with strategic customers and partners where needed.
• Establish pricing performance metrics and reporting to monitor win rates and margins.
• Scale pricing capabilities, processes, tools, and organizational structure over time.

Skills

Pricing strategy

Strategic thinking

Financial modeling

Executive presence

Negotiation

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job 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 www.asteralabs.com .

Role Overview

Astera Labs is seeking a highly strategic and commercially focused Director, Pricing Strategy to define and drive the company's global pricing strategy across its semiconductor, connectivity, software, and platform solutions portfolio.

This role sits at the center of Astera Labs' commercial decision-making and is accountable for three outcomes:

• Define pricing and monetization strategies that strengthen competitive positioning, reflect customer value, and support profitable growth across existing and emerging businesses.
• Institutionalize pricing governance through clear policies, guardrails, approval models, and decision frameworks that improve speed, consistency, and discipline.
• Build a scalable pricing capability over time, including the processes, metrics, tools, and organizational foundations needed to support the company's next phase of growth.

The ideal candidate combines deep semiconductor industry experience with strong business acumen, financial expertise, market insight, and executive presence. This individual understands how technology differentiation, product performance, customer value, competitive dynamics, costs, and market demand interact to influence pricing decisions.

This leader must be equally effective shaping internal strategy and representing Astera Labs externally in senior-level customer and partner pricing discussions. They should be comfortable engaging directly with customer procurement, business, and product stakeholders, especially in complex or ambiguous situations where pricing positions are still being developed.

Key Responsibilities

Pricing Strategy & Monetization

• Build and maintain a deep technical understanding of Astera Labs' products, including PCIe®, CXL®, Ethernet, NVLink, and UALink™ connectivity solutions, smart cable modules, custom connectivity solutions, and the COSMOS software suite, and how each delivers value to customers in AI infrastructure deployments.
• Translate product capabilities, such as bandwidth, reach, latency, signal integrity, power efficiency, interoperability, and time to deployment, into quantified customer value that anchors pricing decisions.
• Define and evolve Astera Labs' global pricing strategy across semiconductor products, software offerings, connectivity solutions, and strategic commercial programs.
• Develop pricing methodologies that balance customer value, technical differentiation, competitive positioning, market adoption, profitability, and long‑term business objectives.
• Partner with Product Management and Engineering to develop pricing, packaging, and monetization strategies for new products, platforms, and emerging business opportunities, grounded in product architecture, roadmap, and customer use cases.
• Analyze market dynamics, customer buying behavior, competitive offerings, and industry trends to identify pricing opportunities and risks.
• Develop and maintain pricing models that incorporate value‑based pricing, technical differentiation, competitive benchmarking, product cost structures, and financial objectives.
• Evaluate price-per-performance positioning using technical benchmarks and other key market metrics to ensure Astera Labs remains competitively positioned across target markets and customer segments.
• Develop pricing recommendations using customer value, product performance, competitive intelligence, market positioning, cost structures, and strategic objectives.
• Develop pricing approaches for custom connectivity solutions, including engineering fees, unit pricing, volume tiers, and multi‑year commercial structures.
• Influence product portfolio strategy through pricing insights, profitability analysis, market intelligence, and commercial recommendations.

Pricing Governance & Frameworks

• Develop and own Astera Labs' pricing governance framework, including pricing policies, discount governance, pricing authority levels, approval processes, and exception management.
• Establish scalable pricing processes that balance business agility with financial discipline and margin objectives.
• Define pricing approval workflows and governance models for strategic customer opportunities, pricing exceptions, discount approvals, and new product introductions.
• Create and maintain pricing guardrails, discount thresholds, pricing corridors, and escalation procedures that improve pricing consistency across the organization, and that reflect differences in product type, technical complexity, and lifecycle stage.
• Partner with Executive Leadership, Finance, Sales, and Product Management to ensure pricing governance aligns with company strategy and growth objectives.
• Provide guidance on discounting policies, customer segmentation strategies, list pricing, pricing structures, and deal governance.

Cross-Functional & Executive Partnership

• Partner with Product Management, Engineering, and Sales teams to stay current on product roadmaps, technology trends, and customer deployment requirements that influence pricing and value.
• Facilitate cross-functional pricing reviews for strategic opportunities, major customer negotiations, new product introductions, and significant commercial initiatives.
• Support executive reviews of strategic customer opportunities, pricing exceptions, and complex commercial agreements.
• Partner with Finance and Operations to understand product cost drivers, manufacturing economics, supply chain dynamics, and gross margin performance.
• Collaborate closely with Sales, Product Management, Finance, Marketing, Operations, and Executive Leadership to drive alignment on commercial decisions.

Customer Engagement & Scaling the Function

• Engage directly in senior-level customer and partner pricing discussions where needed, particularly for strategic accounts, new market opportunities, or complex negotiations, clearly articulating the technical and economic value of Astera Labs' solutions.
• Establish key pricing performance metrics and reporting frameworks to monitor pricing effectiveness, win rates, margin performance, and price realization.
• Help build and scale Astera Labs' pricing capabilities, processes, tools, and organizational expertise over time.

Basic Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Business, Economics, Finance, Engineering, Marketing, or a related field.

10+ years of experience in pricing strategy, product marketing, business management, corporate strategy, finance, product management, commercial operations, or related leadership roles.

Significant experience within the semiconductor industry or adjacent technology sectors relevant to AI infrastructure, connectivity, networking, data center, compute, or cloud infrastructure markets.

Demonstrated experience developing and executing pricing strategies for semiconductor or highly technical technology products.

Strong understanding of semiconductor business models, pricing frameworks, customer buying behavior, and competitive market dynamics.

Experience developing pricing strategies that incorporate technology differentiation, customer value, market positioning, cost structures, and profitability objectives.

Experience evaluating market price points, price-per-performance positioning, and competitive product benchmarks to support commercial decision-making.

Experience developing and implementing pricing governance frameworks, pricing policies, commercial approval processes, or deal governance programs.

Strong financial modeling, profitability analysis, and business case development capabilities.

Experience presenting recommendations and influencing executive-level business decisions.

Experience participating in or leading customer-facing pricing and commercial discussions.

Exceptional analytical, strategic thinking, communication, negotiation, and presentation skills.

Proven ability to work effectively across Sales, Product Management, Finance, Marketing, Operations, and Executive Leadership organizations.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience supporting AI infrastructure, networking, connectivity, interconnect, semiconductor, data center, or cloud infrastructure products.

Deep understanding of semiconductor pricing strategies, product lifecycle management, cost structures, packaging and test economics, yield considerations, and gross margin optimization.

Experience evaluating price-performance positioning and competitive differentiation in highly technical markets.

Experience supporting hyperscalers, OEMs, ODMs, enterprise infrastructure customers, or strategic technology accounts.

Experience developing value-based pricing methodologies and commercial frameworks for differentiated technology products.

Experience building pricing organizations, pricing centers of excellence, or commercial excellence functions.

Experience developing pricing governance models within semiconductor, infrastructure technology, networking, or enterprise hardware businesses.

Experience supporting executive pricing councils, deal review boards, or commercial governance committees.

MBA or advanced degree preferred.

Experience working within a high-growth public technology company is a plus.

Base salary range is $200,000 to $250,000 depending on experience, level, and business need. This role may be eligible for discretionary bonus, incentives and benefits.

We know that creativity and innovation happen more often when teams include diverse ideas, backgrounds, and experiences, and we actively encourage everyone with relevant experience to apply, including people of color, LGBTQ+ and non-binary people, veterans, parents, and individuals with disabilities.