Principal Product Applications Engineer

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

As a Principal Engineer on the Scorpio Product Applications team, you will help customers and internal teams deploy high-performance PCIe fabric solutions for rack-scale AI infrastructure. You will translate complex system requirements into practical architectures, lead platform bring-up, and guide the integration of Scorpio switches across demanding CPU, GPU, NIC, storage, and accelerator designs. This role connects product strategy, firmware, and real-world system behavior.

You will work across hardware, firmware, validation, and customer-facing teams to solve interoperability challenges, accelerate adoption, and shape the next generation of PCIe Gen 6/Gen 7 connectivity. Your work will directly influence how AI systems scale using purpose-built fabrics, UALink, and UCIe.

• Product Applications and Customer Enablement
• Lead technical engagements with customers and ecosystem partners to define Scorpio-based PCIe Firmware architectures and deployment requirements.
• Develop reference designs, application guidance, technical presentations, and system-level collateral that accelerate customer adoption.
• Translate customer use cases into clear Scorpio Firmware requirements, integration plans, and prioritized technical actions.
• PCIe and Firmware Bring-Up
• Drive system bring-up, debug, and interoperability across PCIe hosts, BMCs, GPUs, NICs, storage devices, and other high-performance endpoints.
• Partner with firmware teams to define, implement, and validate device configuration, traffic routing, boot flows, telemetry, recovery mechanisms, and field-debug capabilities.
• Analyze link training, enumeration, performance, error handling, data traffic and system stability issues using protocol traces, logs, and lab instrumentation.
• Build and maintain firmware, validation, and automation workflows that improve debug efficiency and product readiness.
• Cross-Functional Product Leadership
• Partner with firmware, architecture, design, validation, and FAE teams to resolve complex issues from prototype through mass production.
• Lead root-cause analysis, communicate risks and recommendations, and drive issues to closure with clear ownership and measurable outcomes.
• Influence customer decisions on product enhancements and ecosystem interoperability plans for next-generation AI infrastructure connectivity.

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• 8–12 years of experience in product applications, firmware development, systems engineering, platform validation, or a related semiconductor domain.
• Strong understanding of PCIe Switch Firmware, PCIe architecture (including link training, enumeration, configuration space, error handling, performance, and system interoperability).
• Experience with firmware development or debug, including the ability to read code, interpret logs, and collaborate effectively with firmware developers.
• Hands-on experience with system…