(Senior) Principal Engineer (Field Applications)

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

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible time off in the US

Parental leave

401K

Retirement and pension plans

Competitive medical, dental and vision

Job summary

Astera Labs in San Jose seeks a (Sr.) Principal Engineer - Field Applications Engineering to be a trusted partner for customers deploying our high-speed connectivity solutions.

You will lead critical support for Ethernet and PCIe products, translating system requirements into production-ready designs and accelerating issue resolution across AI infrastructure platforms.

Qualifications

• 8–20 years of experience in field applications engineering, system engineering, or related domains.
• Proven ability to lead complex customer escalations and communicate clearly to diverse audiences.
• Strong understanding of high-speed interfaces, physical-layer behavior and system bring-up.

Responsibilities

• Lead engagements with strategic customers from architecture through deployment and production support.
• Own customer escalations, define action plans, and drive timely closure with measurable outcomes.
• Present design recommendations, bring-up results, and tradeoffs to customer teams.
• Develop system-level debug plans for Ethernet/PCIe connectivity issues and ensure compliance.
• Analyze physical-layer behavior, signal integrity, logs and telemetry to isolate root causes.
• Collaborate with engineering to reproduce field issues and communicate workarounds.
• Work with sales and product management to capture customer requirements and shape strategies.
• Create technical collateral, reference architectures, and enablement materials.
• Mentor Field Applications Engineers and help scalable onboarding processes.

Skills

High-speed interfaces

Physical-layer concepts

System-level integration

Customer escalation leadership

Debug and fault isolation

Cross-functional collaboration

Technical mentoring

Education

Master's degree in Electrical Engineering

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering

Master's degree in Computer Engineering

Tools

PCIe Gen5/6/7

Ethernet

Lab instrumentation

Reference designs

Validation planning

Job description

• As a (Sr.) Principal Engineer - Field Applications Engineering, you will serve as a trusted technical partner to customers deploying Astera Labs’ high-speed connectivity solutions. You will lead the continuation of critical customer support for Ethernet and PCIe products, translating system requirements into reliable, production-ready designs and accelerating issue resolution across complex AI infrastructure platforms
• Based onsite in San Jose, you will work closely with customers and cross-functional teams across sales, product management, design engineering, validation, and operations. Your expertise in high-speed interfaces, physical-layer behavior, and system-level integration will help customers bring next-generation rack-scale AI architectures to market with confidence
• Lead technical engagements with strategic customers from architecture definition through deployment and production support
• Own customer escalations, establish clear action plans, and drive issues to timely closure with measurable outcomes
• Present design recommendations, bring-up results, and technical tradeoffs to customer engineering and leadership teams
• Develop and execute system-level debug plans for Ethernet and PCIe connectivity issues, including link training, interoperability, compliance, and performance
• Analyze physical-layer behavior, signal-integrity symptoms, error logs, lab data, and system telemetry to isolate root causes
• Partner with engineering teams to reproduce field issues, influence product improvements, and communicate effective workarounds or corrective actions
• Collaborate with sales and product management to capture customer requirements and shape application strategies for emerging AI infrastructure designs
• Create technical collateral, reference architectures, application notes, and enablement materials for customers and internal teams
• Mentor Field Applications Engineers and contribute to scalable processes for customer onboarding, issue tracking, and product adoption

Benefits

• Flexible time off in the US
• Parental leave
• 401K
• Retirement and pension plans
• Competitive medical, dental and vision plans

Ability to work onsite in San Jose and travel to customer and partner locations as neededProven record of influencing cross-functional teams and mentoring technical professionals in a fast-moving, high-growth environmentFamiliarity with server, accelerator, switch, NIC, storage, or other data-center platform architecturesDeep hands-on experience with Ethernet and/or PCIe systems, high-speed SerDes, link training, interoperability, and compliance8–20 years of experience in field applications engineering, system engineering, product engineering, or a related domainMaster’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related fieldExperience with PCIe Gen 5/6/7, high-speed Ethernet, retimers, redrivers, signal-conditioning and scale-up, scale-out solutionsBachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical fieldDemonstrated ability to lead complex customer escalations, debug, and communicate technical concepts clearly to diverse audiencesStrong understanding of physical-layer concepts, signal integrity, board-level bring-up, lab instrumentation, and system-level debugExperience developing reference designs, validation plans, interoperability strategies, or customer-facing technical documentation