Principal AI Infrastructure Apps Engineer (Customer-Facing)

Astera Labs; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Astera Labs is seeking a Principal Product Applications Engineer to bridge customers and engineering in a high‑impact, highly technical role. You will partner with hyperscalers, AI infrastructure providers, and OEMs to drive custom silicon programs from architecture discussions through production deployment.

This role is not traditional pre‑sales; it combines deep technical expertise with strong customer engagement, influencing future silicon developments and delivering end‑to‑end solutions.

Qualifications

• BS or MS in Electrical Engineering or related technical discipline.
• 10+ years in product applications, systems, or customer-facing semiconductor roles.
• Experience with high-speed interconnects (Ethernet 800G, PCIe, SerDes).
• Experience with silicon bring-up, post-silicon validation, and system-level debugging.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary technical interface for strategic customer programs.
• Develop trusted technical relationships with customer engineering teams.
• Support architecture discussions through silicon bring-up, validation, and production.
• Lead complex customer debugging across hardware, firmware, and software.
• Translate customer requirements into actionable engineering tasks.
• Collaborate with Product Management, Architecture, ASIC Design, Firmware, Validation, and Software Engineering.
• Influence future silicon products with customer feedback to engineering.
• Develop technical collateral, reference designs, and troubleshooting guides.
• Travel to customer sites to support key design wins.

Education

Electrical Engineering or related field

Tools

Python

C/C++

Job description

Astera Labs is seeking a Principal Product Applications Engineer to bridge customers and engineering in a high‑impact, highly technical role. You will partner with hyperscalers, AI infrastructure providers, and OEMs to drive custom silicon programs from architecture discussions through production deployment.

This role is not traditional pre‑sales; it combines deep technical expertise with strong customer engagement, influencing future silicon developments and delivering end‑to‑end solutions.