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Astera Labs

Product Integration, Senior Principal - Active Electric Cable / Smart Cable Module Business

Salary$230k – $255k
LocationSan Jose, California, United States
Typefull-time
DepartmentHardware Engineering
Company size1,001–5,000 people
First seen1w ago
Last seen1d ago
About the company
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.
About Astera Labs
Astera Labs is the connectivity backbone of rack-scale AI infrastructure. Our Active Electrical Cables (AEC), Smart Cable Modules (SCM), Silicon Evaluation Platforms, and rack-scale products deliver purpose-built, high-speed connectivity for the world’s most demanding AI clusters. As our product portfolio expands in complexity, performance, and volume — and as OEM customers increasingly adopt Astera Labs silicon into their own designs — we need a senior engineering leader to build and scale the hardware design engineering organization that creates industry-defining products and enables our customers’ success.
We are hiring a Senior Principal Engineer, AEC Product Integration to serve as the senior technical integration leader for Astera Labs’ Active Electrical Cable product line. This is a deeply technical, hands-on individual contributor role at the most senior level — responsible for ensuring that every element of an AEC product (silicon, firmware, PCB/substrate, cable assembly, connector, mechanical, thermal, and signal integrity) comes together into a fully validated, production-ready, customer-qualified product.
You will be the single technical point of accountability for AEC product integration — the person who sees the complete picture, identifies gaps between disciplines, resolves cross-domain technical conflicts, and drives closure on the hardest integration challenges. You’ll work at the intersection of hardware design, firmware, signal integrity, mechanical engineering, test, manufacturing, and customer applications — ensuring that Astera Labs’ AEC products meet or exceed performance, quality, and reliability targets at scale.
Reporting to the AVP of AEC/SCM Hardware Engineering, you’ll partner closely with engineering leads across all disciplines, as well as NPI, QA, validation, manufacturing, and customer engineering teams. You won’t manage a large organization — instead, you’ll lead through technical depth, cross-functional influence, and the ability to drive complex multi-variable problems to resolution.
Key Responsibilities
End-to-End Product Integration
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Own the technical integration of AEC products across all constituent domains: ASIC/retimer silicon, firmware, PCB/flex circuit, cable assembly, connector interface, mechanical housing, thermal management, and signal integrity
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Define and maintain the AEC product integration plan — identifying all cross-domain interfaces, dependencies, risks, and validation checkpoints from early design through mass production release
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Serve as the central technical authority who ensures all subsystem specifications are mutually consistent, physically realizable, and collectively deliver the target product performance
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Drive integration trade-off decisions when competing requirements across domains (e.g., signal integrity vs. mechanical, thermal vs. cost, firmware timing vs. test coverage) require resolution
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Own the AEC product-level specification, ensuring it flows coherently from system-level customer requirements down to component-level specifications for each engineering team
Signal Integrity & Electrical Performance Integration
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Ensure end-to-end channel performance meets target specifications across the full AEC link — from host connector, through PCB/substrate, retimer silicon, flex/cable medium, and far-end connector
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Partner with Signal Integrity engineers to validate channel models, S-parameter budgets, eye diagram margins, and compliance to relevant standards (IEEE 802.3ck/dj, OIF CEI-112G/224G)
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Drive resolution of signal integrity issues that span multiple domains — e.g., connector-to-PCB transition optimization, cable-to-substrate impedance matching, crosstalk between differential pairs in dense cable bundles
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Define and enforce electrical interface specifications at every integration boundary (silicon-to-substrate, substrate-to-cable, cable-to-connector, connector-to-host)
Hardware & Mechanical Integration
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Coordinate the physical integration of retimer silicon, passive components, flex circuits or PCBs, cable assemblies, and mechanical housings into a unified AEC product form factor
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Work with Mechanical Engineering to ensure connector mating, latching, strain relief, bend radius, thermal dissipation, and form factor compliance are achieved within customer and standards requirements
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Drive resolution of mechanical-electrical conflicts (e.g., routing density vs. housing volume, thermal solution vs. weight/form factor, strain relief vs. cable flexibility)
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Review and approve mechanical drawings, 3D models, tolerance stacks, and assembly sequences for AEC products
Firmware & Silicon Integration
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Partner with Firmware Engineering to ensure retimer/re-driver firmware initialization, link training, equalization, and diagnostic features integrate correctly with the AEC hardware platform
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Define firmware-hardware interface requirements — including power sequencing, thermal monitoring/throttling, I2C/CMIS register maps, and in-field diagnostic capabilities
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Drive debug and root-cause analysis of integration issues that span silicon, firmware, and hardware boundaries (e.g., link instability tied to power delivery transients, equalization failures tied to channel asymmetry)
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Ensure AEC products comply with relevant management interface standards (CMIS, SFF-8636, or proprietary host interfaces)
Test & Validation Integration
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Define the AEC product-level validation plan — ensuring comprehensive coverage across electrical performance, mechanical durability, environmental reliability, firmware functionality, and interoperability
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Partner with Test Engineering to specify end-of-line production test requirements that validate all critical integration parameters without excessive test time
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Drive cross-domain failure analysis when product-level test failures cannot be attributed to a single subsystem — marshaling resources across SI, hardware, firmware, and mechanical teams to identify root cause
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Own the integration test phase during NPI — defining entry/exit criteria, managing issue trackers, driving closure, and making go/no-go recommendations for production readiness
Customer Integration & Interoperability
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Serve as the senior technical interface for AEC product integration with customer platforms — understanding host ASIC requirements, switch/NIC compatibility, rack-level cabling architectures, and system-level thermal/mechanical constraints
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Drive interoperability testing and debug with customer hardware, resolving link-level issues that may involve Astera Labs’ AEC, customer host silicon, or system-level environmental factors
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Translate customer integration feedback into actionable engineering requirements and design improvements for current and future AEC generations
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Support customer qualification activities by providing technical data packages, integration guides, and direct engineering engagement
Cross-Functional Technical Leadership
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Lead cross-domain integration reviews and design reviews — bringing together hardware, firmware, SI, mechanical, test, manufacturing, and quality engineers to assess readiness at each product milestone
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Identify and escalate integration risks early — proposing mitigation plans and driving pre-emptive resolution before issues reach production or customer sites
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Establish and document integration best practices, lessons learned, and reusable frameworks that improve efficiency across successive AEC product generations
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Mentor engineers across disciplines on systems-level thinking and cross-domain integration methodology
Manufacturing & NPI Integration
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Partner with Manufacturing Engineering and NPI teams to ensure that the integrated AEC product design is manufacturable, testable, and scalable at volume
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Participate in DFM/DFA/DFT reviews with a focus on integration-critical process steps (e.g., cable-to-substrate attachment, retimer placement, overmolding, connector alignment)
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Support production ramp by driving resolution of integration-related yield issues, process excursions, or field failures that span multiple manufacturing operations
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Define incoming inspection and in-process integration verification checkpoints to catch cross-domain defects early in the production flow
Basic Qualifications
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Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related technical discipline
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15+ years of experience in hardware product development, with substantial focus on high-speed interconnect, cable assembly, transceiver/module, or mixed signal/digital system integration
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Demonstrated track record as a technical integration leader — owning the full-product convergence across multiple engineering disciplines on complex hardware products
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Deep understanding of high-speed serial link design (56G/112G PAM4 or above), including signal integrity, channel modeling, equalization, and link budgeting
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Strong working knowledge of PCB/substrate design, cable assembly construction, connector technology, and mechanical packaging for high-speed interconnects
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Experience with firmware/hardware integration on products containing retimers, re-drivers, or PHY-layer silicon
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Proven ability to drive complex cross-functional debug and root-cause analysis spanning electrical, mechanical, firmware, and manufacturing domains
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Experience supporting customer integration, interoperability testing, and platform-level qualification
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Excellent communication skills — able to distill complex multi-domain trade-offs for both technical peers and executive audiences
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Willingness to travel (20–30%) to CM sites in Asia and customer locations as required
Preferred Qualifications
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Master’s or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with emphasis on high-speed interconnects, signal integrity, or mixed-signal systems
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Direct hands-on experience with Active Electrical Cables (AEC), Active Copper Cables (ACC), Direct Attach Cables (DAC), or Smart Cable Modules (SCM)
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Experience integrating products based on retimer or linear re-driver ASICs (e.g., Astera Labs Aries, Broadcom, Marvell, or equivalent)
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Deep familiarity with relevant standards: IEEE 802.3ck (100G/lane), 802.3dj (200G/lane), OIF CEI-112G, CEI-224G, SFF-8636, CMIS, OSFP, QSFP-DD
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Experience with 224G/lane (1.6T) interconnect technology and next-generation cable/connector architectures
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Background in system-level integration for hyperscale data center or AI infrastructure applications
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Experience with contract manufacturers in Asia for cable assembly or module production
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Familiarity with environmental/reliability testing standards (GR-468, Telcordia, IEC) for interconnect products
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Mandarin language proficiency for direct technical engagement with Asian manufacturing partners
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Experience with simulation tools (HFSS, ADS, CST, or equivalent) and lab measurement equipment (oscilloscopes, BER testers, VNAs, TDR)
Base salary range is $230,000 to $255,000 depending on experience, level, and business need. This role may be eligible for discretionary bonus, incentives and benefits.
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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.
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