Principal Hardware Architect: High-Speed Networking & PCIe

Astera Labs; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 185,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Astera Labs seeks a Principal Electrical Design Engineer to define architecture, design, and technical strategy for advanced board-level hardware across networking and high-performance connectivity platforms.

You will set technical direction for board architecture, establish design methodologies, and lead cross-functional teams to deliver industry-leading products from concept through production and beyond.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering or closely related field. Advanced degree preferred.
• 12+ years of progressive hardware design experience with leadership across product generations.
• Proven track record delivering production hardware for server/networking/storage/ HPC systems.
• Expert-level SerDes experience with Ethernet/PCIe; PCIe Gen5/Gen6 and 400G/800G design.
• Deep SI fundamentals including impedance control, differential routing, and layout reviews.
• Power integrity and PDN design knowledge for multi-rail topologies and sequencing.

Responsibilities

• Define and own board-level hardware architecture and technical roadmap across product lines.
• Establish standards, methodologies, and best practices for hardware design.
• Drive architectural tradeoffs for multi-layer PCBs with high-speed circuitry.
• Lead stack-up, impedance optimization and SI-related development work.
• Own power delivery architecture strategy across platform generations.
• Define hardware interfaces such as I2C, SPI, GPIO, MDIO, and observability architectures.
• Own schematic capture and board-level designs for complex multi-layer PCBs.
• Provide technical oversight for designs across multiple programs.
• Lead component strategy and qualification with suppliers and manufacturing.
• Drive DFT/DFM/DFR initiatives to improve manufacturability and yield.

Skills

Board-level hardware design

High-speed SerDes

PCIe Gen6

Power integrity

Signal integrity

Leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Schematic capture

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering

Tools

Cadence Allegro/OrCAD

Job description

Astera Labs seeks a Principal Electrical Design Engineer to define architecture, design, and technical strategy for advanced board-level hardware across networking and high-performance connectivity platforms.

You will set technical direction for board architecture, establish design methodologies, and lead cross-functional teams to deliver industry-leading products from concept through production and beyond.