Principal Product Application Engineer - Scorpio at Asteralabs

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. Role Overview As a Principal Product Applications Engineer at Astera Labs, you will be at the forefront of enabling the world's leading cloud service providers and server/network OEMs to successfully deploy connectivity solutions. This high-impact role sits at the intersection of cutting-edge silicon, firmware, and customer success—where you'll tackle complex technical challenges that push the boundaries of AI infrastructure connectivity. You will serve as a trusted technical advisor to strategic customers, guiding them through design-in, bring-up, and optimization of Astera Labs products. With a strong firmware orientation, you'll dive deep into embedded systems, debug intricate firmware-hardware interactions, and drive issues to resolution across the full stack. Your insights from the field will directly influence product roadmaps and engineering priorities, making you a critical bridge between customers and our R&D teams. This is an opportunity to work on industry-defining connectivity products that power next-generation data centers and AI platforms—all within a fast-paced, hypergrowth environment where your contributions have immediate and visible impact. Key Responsibilities • Customer Technical Engagement • Provide expert technical guidance to tier-1 customers throughout the design-in lifecycle, from early evaluation through production deployment • Build trusted relationships with customer engineering teams, serving as the go-to resource for product integration • Deliver technical presentations, training sessions, and design reviews to accelerate customer success • Firmware Debug & Issue Resolution • Investigate and reproduce customer-reported issues involving firmware, silicon, hardware design, and system-level interactions • Drive root cause analysis and coordinate cross-functional teams to deliver timely resolutions • Develop firmware-based tools, scripts, and utilities to streamline debug and validation workflows • Technical Collateral & Knowledge Sharing • Create high-quality application notes, integration guides, and technical documentation for internal and external audiences • Provide actionable feedback to product, firmware, and silicon teams to continuously improve products and customer experience • Contribute to the development of reference designs and best practices for product deployment • Lab Validation & Bring-Up • Execute hands-on silicon and system bring-up activities, including firmware validation and performance characterization • Utilize lab equipment such as protocol analyzers, high-speed oscilloscopes, and traffic generators to diagnose complex issues • Support interoperability testing across diverse customer platforms and configurations Basic Qualifications • Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field • 8+ years of experience in product applications, field applications, or systems engineering roles supporting complex semiconductor products • Strong firmware development and debugging skills, including proficiency in embedded C and Python • Experience with high-speed interfaces such as PCIe Gen5/6/7 or Ethernet • Demonstrated ability to triage and resolve multi-layer issues spanning silicon, firmware, and system environments • Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a track record of producing clear technical documentation Preferred Qualifications • Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field • Experience with Ethernet products, retimers, or PCIe connectivity solutions • Hands-on experience with protocol analyzers, high-speed oscilloscopes, and BERTs • Background working directly with cloud service providers, server OEMs, or networking equipment manufacturers • Understanding of data center architectures including servers, AI platforms, JBOGs/JBODs, and network switches • Familiarity with physical layer concepts and signal integrity fundamentals The base salary range for this role is CAD 180,000 – CAD 205,000. Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. You will also be eligible for a performance bonus, equity, and benefits. 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.