Senior Principal Engineer, Hardware Application Engineering — Board & System Design

Cephas Consultancy Services Private Limited; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Cephas Consultancy Services Private Limited in Santa Clara, CA seeks a Senior Principal Engineer to guide customer hardware design‑in for Ethernet Switch and UALink platforms, bridging silicon teams with hardware engineering. You will review architectures, PCB stack‑ups, power, and thermal designs, and develop reference designs for production readiness.

You will lead design reviews, provide hands‑on bring‑up support, and mentor teams on high‑speed design, tooling, and reliability across the full

Qualifications

• PhD, Master’s, or Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field.
• 15+ years of hardware design, development, and validation of high‑speed networking or compute systems.
• 7+ years in board and system design for high‑speed platforms with modern SerDes (25G NRZ through 112G/224G PAM4).
• Full lifecycle ownership of complex high‑speed boards: architecture, schematic, layout guidance, bring‑up.
• Experience defining and delivering reference designs for customer or internal platform adoption.
• Strong PCB stack‑up and material selection for high‑speed, high‑layer‑count boards.
• Power architecture for high‑current ASICs, PDN design, sequencing, decoupling, tolerance analysis.
• Thermal design and mechanical integration for high‑power systems.
• SI/PI principles; ability to review simulations and run targeted analyses.
• Hands‑on hardware bring‑up, lab debug, root‑cause analysis with industry tools.
• Experience with Ethernet, PCIe, DDR, SerDes and power delivery architectures.
• Customer‑facing experience and ability to train engineering audiences.
• Excellent communication to influence senior customer teams.

Responsibilities

• Guide customer hardware design‑in for Ethernet Switch and UALink platforms, ensuring manufacturability and reliability.
• Review and shape board architecture, PCB stack‑ups, power and thermal designs across architecture through bring‑up.
• Define and support reference designs for silicon and collaborate with silicon and packaging teams.
• Provide technical leadership and education to customers and internal teams on high‑speed design best practices.

Skills

Board & system design

PCB stack‑up

Power integrity

Thermal design

SerDes (25G NRZ–112G/224G PAM4)

Reference designs

Customer enablement

Schematic bring‑up

Signal integrity

High‑speed interfaces

Education

PhD, Master’s or Bachelor’s in Electrical/Computer Engineering

Tools

Cadence Allegro/Sigrity

Mentor/Siemens Xpedition/HyperLynx

Job description

Senior Principal Engineer, Hardware Application Engineering — Board & System Design

Cephas Consultancy Services Private Limited Santa Clara, California, United States

About this position

Your Team, Your Impact
Our U.S. Customer Solutions Group is the frontline technical partner to the world's most demanding infrastructure customers — megascale data centers, cloud providers, and AI system builders. We turn Marvell silicon into deployable platforms by working shoulder-to-shoulder with customer engineering teams from early architecture through production ramp.

Our engineers bring deep, hands‑on expertise across hardware, software, and system integration. The close, trust‑based collaboration we build with our customers — and with our silicon and engineering hardware teams — is foundational to our growth in networking, connectivity, and AI infrastructure.

What You Can Expect

As Senior Principal Engineer for Board & System Hardware Design, you will be the senior technical authority guiding customer hardware design‑in on our Ethernet Switch and UALink platforms, and a key technical bridge between our silicon teams, internal hardware engineering, and the field. Your primary mission is to ensure that customers' next‑generation switches, AI fabric platforms, and networking systems are designed right the first time — performant, manufacturable, reliable, and ready for high‑volume production.

This is a deep individual contributor role with a strong system‑design and productization focus. You will spend most of your time reviewing and shaping customer hardware designs — covering board architecture, PCB stack‑up and material selection, power architecture, thermal design, mechanical integration, and reliability and retain full hands‑on capability across the entire design lifecycle from architecture through schematic, layout guidance, and bring‑up. You will also play a central role in defining and supporting reference designs for new silicon and serving as a trusted technical educator to both customers and internal teams. You will be a key technical voice in our evolution toward 224G and 448G SerDes‑class systems and the emerging open AI fabric standards.

Serve as the senior technical advisor to customer hardware teams designing platforms around our Ethernet switches and UALink silicon, from early architecture through production ramp.

Lead design‑in reviews of customer schematics, PCB stack‑ups, and overall system architectures, identifying risks early and guiding customers to best‑in‑class implementations.

Define, develop, and support reference designs for our new silicon — partnering with silicon, packaging, and internal HW engineering teams from early product definition through customer release.

Work closely with our internal hardware engineering and silicon teams as a feedback channel from the field — influencing silicon I/O, package, power, and reference design choices based on real customer deployment learnings.

Drive PCB stack‑up strategy and material selection (low‑loss laminates, copper roughness, glass weave, via construction) to meet high‑speed performance and cost targets.

Own architecture, schematic, layout guidance, and bring‑up of Marvell reference and evaluation platforms, applying full lifecycle hands‑on expertise where needed.

Guide customers on power delivery architecture, including PDN design, multi‑rail sequencing, decoupling strategy, and tolerance analysis for high‑current ASICs.

Advise on thermal design, mechanical integration, and cooling strategies (air, liquid, immersion) to meet performance and reliability targets in real deployments.

Provide guidance on signal and power integrity, reviewing customer SI/PI simulations and contributing simulations directly when the project requires it.

Drive design for reliability, manufacturability, and testability — ensuring smooth transitions to production at ODM/CM partners.

Develop and deliver technical training to customers and our internal teams covering our silicon, reference designs, high‑speed design best practices, and productization methodologies.

Provide technical leadership on 112G and 224G PAM4 SerDes designs today, and help shape our hardware approach for next‑generation 448G systems.

Lead hardware bring‑up support, root‑cause debug, and issue resolution during customer lab phases and early production.

Partner closely with our Silicon Design, Packaging, SI/PI, Software, and Operations teams to deliver fully integrated solutions.

Contribute to product definition and roadmap planning by bringing real‑world customer feedback into architecture and marketing discussions.

Represent our hardware expertise in customer briefings, executive reviews, and industry technical forums.

What We're Looking For

PhD, Master's, or Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.

15+ years of experience in hardware design, development, and validation of high‑speed networking or compute systems.

7+ years of dedicated experience in board and system design for high‑speed platforms involving modern SerDes (25G NRZ through 112G/224G PAM4).

Proven full‑lifecycle ownership of complex high‑speed boards: architecture, schematic, layout guidance, and bring‑up.

Demonstrated experience defining and delivering reference designs that enabled customer or internal platform adoption.

Strong expertise in PCB stack‑up design and material selection for high‑speed, high‑layer‑count boards.

Deep experience with power architecture for high‑current ASICs, including PDN design, sequencing, decoupling, and tolerance analysis.

Solid background in thermal design and mechanical integration for high‑power network and AI systems.

Working knowledge of SI/PI principles, with the ability to review customer simulations and run targeted simulations independently when needed.

Hands‑on experience with hardware bring‑up, lab debug, and root‑cause analysis using industry‑standard lab equipment.

Deep understanding of high‑speed interfaces: Ethernet, PCIe, DDR, advanced SerDes, and modern power delivery architectures.

Strong grasp of design for reliability, manufacturability, and testability across the product lifecycle.

Customer‑facing experience supporting complex technical engagements and resolving real‑world deployment issues.

Proven ability to develop and deliver technical training content to engineering audiences.

Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence senior customer engineering teams and collaborate across disciplines and geographies.

Preferred

Direct experience with Ethernet switch platforms (any tier) and/or emerging open AI fabric standards and architectures.

Background in reference platform design and customer enablement for silicon‑based solutions.

Familiarity with ODM/CM manufacturing flows, including DFM/DFT, qualification, and reliability testing.

Experience with advanced cooling approaches (liquid, immersion) for high‑power AI/networking platforms.

EDA tool fluency in either Cadence (Allegro/Sigrity) or Mentor/Siemens (Xpedition/HyperLynx) ecosystems — tool‑agnostic candidates with deep expertise welcome.

Track record of influencing silicon and platform roadmaps based on customer and field insights.

Leadership & Impact

As a senior technical leader within the Customer Solutions Group, you will:

Set the technical bar for board and system hardware design quality across Marvell's most strategic customer engagements.

Serve as a key technical interface between customers, Marvell silicon teams, and internal hardware engineering — accelerating learning in both directions.

Mentor engineers across the team and lead training for customers and internal stakeholders, raising collective expertise in system design, productization, and customer enablement.

Shape the direction of our customer‑facing hardware solutions and influence next‑generation product evolution.

Act as a technical ambassador, representing our hardware capabilities to top‑tier customers and partners.

Travel as needed to customer sites, ODMs, and labs — typically project‑driven rather than continuous.