Principal Digital Design Engineer

Role Overview

Join Astera Labs as a Principal Digital Design Engineer to architect and implement next-generation digital designs for high-performance AI connectivity solutions. You'll own complex blocks from micro-architecture through silicon bring-up, driving RTL implementation and collaborating with verification, physical design, and DFT teams to deliver production-quality silicon supporting PCIe Gen 6/7, CXL, UALink, UCI, Ethernet, and DDR4/DDR5 protocols.

This role offers the opportunity to work on cutting-edge technology at the forefront of AI infrastructure, taking ownership of critical design challenges in a fast-paced, collaborative environment where your contributions directly impact products deployed by the world's leading hyperscalers.

Key Responsibilities

• Design Ownership & Execution
• Develop and implement complex digital blocks and subsystems by defining micro-architecture and driving RTL implementation with an exceptional power, performance and area trade-off using silicon technologies better than 7nm.
• Lead efforts to achieve timing closure and implement Design-for-Test (DFT) features for optimal design performance
• Drive designs to production, ensuring accountability for quality, schedule, and overall design success
• Verification & Integration
• Collaborate with verification teams to develop test plans, achieve coverage closure, and debug complex issues
• Own third-party IP integration and block-level verification through sign-off
• Work closely with post-silicon teams to facilitate silicon bring-up and debug
• Technical Leadership
• Mentor junior engineers to develop their technical skills and expertise
• Actively contribute to the development and improvement of silicon development processes
• Drive design methodology improvements and CAD automation initiatives

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or equivalent
• 10+ years of hands-on experience developing complex SoC/silicon products in Server, Storage, and/or Networking markets
• Expertise in architecture definition, micro-architecture development, RTL coding, functional simulation, and synthesis
• Strong understanding of timing closure, gate-level simulation (GLS), and DFT implementation
• Deep expertise in at least one high-speed protocol: PCIe, CXL, Ethernet, DDR, or similar
• Production experience with advanced CMOS nodes (≤7nm)
• Proficiency with Cadence and/or Synopsys digital design flows

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree in Electrical Engineering or related field
• Track record of delivering multiple high-performance designs to production in data-center environments
• Hands-on collaboration with embedded firmware teams; understanding of firmware development challenges
• Familiarity with standard embedded processor subsystems (RISC-V, Arm, etc.)
• Proven contributions to design methodology, CAD automation, or design infrastructure

Salary range is $185,000 to $230,000 depending on experience, level, and business need. This role may be eligible for discretionary bonus, incentives and benefits