Principal Product Applications Engineer

Who you are

• BS or MS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline
• 10+ years of experience in Product Applications Engineering, Systems Engineering, Customer Engineering, Field Applications Engineering, or a related customer-facing semiconductor role
• Experience supporting advanced semiconductor or custom silicon products from architecture through production
• Strong understanding of high-speed interconnect technologies, including Ethernet (through 800G), PCIe, PAM4, SerDes, DSPs, DAC, AEC, ACC, AOC, and related hardware technologies
• Experience with silicon bring-up, post-silicon validation, and system-level debugging
• Strong Linux debugging and troubleshooting experience
• Experience writing Python or C/C++ scripts for automation, diagnostics, firmware validation, or lab workflows
• Proven experience working directly with hyperscalers, cloud providers, enterprise customers, or major OEMs
• Excellent communication, presentation, and technical leadership skills
• Experience supporting AI infrastructure platforms or high-performance computing systems
• Familiarity with custom ASIC development and customer-specific silicon solutions
• Experience with firmware, embedded software, or FPGA validation
• Understanding of networking, storage, memory, or accelerator architectures
• Experience creating customer-facing technical documentation, training materials, and application notes
• Experience supporting executive customer reviews and technical design discussions

What the job involves

• Astera Labs is seeking a Principal Product Applications Engineer to serve as the technical bridge between our customers and engineering organization
• In this highly customer-facing role, you will work directly with hyperscalers, AI infrastructure providers, and strategic OEM customers to support custom silicon programs from early architecture discussions through production deployment
• You'll partner with Product Management, Architecture, ASIC Design, Firmware, Validation, and Software Engineering to ensure customer requirements are translated into successful products while helping customers deploy next-generation AI infrastructure
• This is not a traditional pre-sales Field Applications Engineer role, nor is it an internal validation position
• You will combine deep technical expertise with strong customer engagement to solve complex system-level challenges and influence future silicon development
• Serve as the primary technical interface for strategic customer programs
• Develop trusted technical relationships with customer engineering teams and become a key advisor throughout the product lifecycle
• Support customer engagements from architecture discussions through silicon bring-up, validation, production, and deployment
• Lead complex customer debug efforts involving hardware, firmware, software, and system-level integration
• Translate customer requirements, deployment challenges, and architecture feedback into actionable engineering requirements
• Collaborate closely with Product Management, Architecture, ASIC Design, Firmware, Validation, and Software Engineering to drive customer success
• Influence future silicon products by providing customer insights and technical feedback to engineering teams
• Support customer design reviews, architecture discussions, technical training, and executive-level technical engagements
• Develop technical collateral, application notes, reference designs, troubleshooting guides, and customer documentation
• Support technical escalations and drive issues to resolution across cross-functional engineering teams
• Develop automation and diagnostic tools using Python or C/C++ to improve engineering efficiency and customer support
• Travel to customer sites as needed to support key design wins and strategic engagements

Benefits

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