Product Application Engineer, Principal
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. Job Description Draft — Optical Product Application Engineer, Principal Location: San Jose, CA Astera Labs is redefining the connectivity fabric of rack-scale AI infrastructure, and optical connectivity is one of the most pivotal technologies shaping the next generation of scale-up and scale-out systems. As a Principal Application Engineer for Optical Products, you will be the senior technical face to our largest hyperscale and AI platform customers — driving optical solution adoption, link bring-up, and system-level enablement across our switching and connectivity portfolio. This is a hands-on, customer-facing leadership role at the intersection of silicon, optics, and system design. You'll partner closely with hyperscalers, optical module makers, and our internal silicon, firmware, and hardware teams to ensure flawless deployment of optics-based platforms supporting UALink, PCIe, and high-speed Ethernet — directly accelerating Astera's hyper-growth in AI connectivity. Key Responsibilities Customer Technical Leadership Serve as the principal technical authority for optical solutions across hyperscale and AI platform customers, driving architecture reviews, design-ins, and deployment escalations. Deliver technical documentations, product training, and demonstrations to customer engineering teams Build trusted advisor relationships with key customers or partners and drive product adoption System & Link Debug and Validation Support Support customer lab bring-up, characterization, debug of links covering optical and electrical co-design, SerDes tuning, link training, and system validation. Lead root cause analysis and debugging of end-to-end signal/power integrity, interoperability, and protocol issues in customer systems. Develop reference test methodologies, lab automation, and debug playbooks adopted across customer base. Cross-Functional Engineering Partnership Partner with silicon, firmware, hardware, and product teams to root-cause complex issues and drive design improvements back into the product line. Collaborate with optical module and ecosystem partners on packaging interfaces, thermal/mechanical integration, and reliability. Influence...