Principal Emulation 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 [](http://www.asteralabs.com/). Principal Emulation Engineer — San Jose, CA Role Overview As a Principal Emulation Engineer, you will build and operate emulation environments that let verification teams stress-test complex ASICs before silicon. You’ll partner closely with design, verification, firmware, and systems engineers to model hardware-software interactions, exercise high-speed protocols, and isolate issues across RTL, transactors, test environments, and code. Your hands-on leadership will turn difficult debug problems into actionable fixes and improve confidence in each product milestone. Astera Labs is accelerating the infrastructure behind AI by delivering purpose-built connectivity solutions for rack-scale systems. In this role, you’ll help validate the switching, PCIe, Ethernet, memory, and storage interfaces that connect the compute fabric—enabling faster bring-up, stronger interoperability, and more reliable platforms as the company scales. Key Responsibilities - **Emulation and Prototyping** - Architect, build, and maintain emulation environments for complex ASICs and SoCs. - Integrate RTL, transactors, protocol models, software, and test infrastructure to enable meaningful hardware-software co-simulation. - Enable verification teams to stress-test designs with scalable, repeatable emulation workflows. - Develop reusable models, utilities, and debug methodologies that accelerate pre-silicon validation. - **Protocol and SoC Verification** - Verify hardware-software interfaces and system behaviors in partnership with logic designers, firmware engineers, and verification teams. - Exercise and debug PCI Express Gen 3 and above, Ethernet, DDR, NVMe, SPI, I2C/I3C, and similar interfaces. - Analyze protocol behavior, functional coverage, performance, and corner cases across complex server, storage, and networking systems. - Translate system requirements into practical emulation scenarios, tests, checkers, and measurable verification goals. - **Debug and Technical Leadership** - Debug design, environment, transactor, software, and test-code issues across the emulation stack. - Identify software and hardware co-simulation limitations and apply effective isolation and debug techniques. - Partner with cross-functional teams to prioritize a dynamic workload, resolve issues quickly, and drive risks to closure. - Provide technical leadership, communicate clearly, and operate effectively with minimal guidance and supervision. Basic Qualifications - Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field. - 8–12 years of experience supporting or developing complex SoC or silicon products for server, storage, or networking applications. - Experience working with logic designers to architect, specify, and verify hardware-software interfaces on complex SoCs. - Working knowledge of PCI Express Gen 3 or later, CXL, UALink, Ethernet, DDR, NVMe, SPI, I2C/I3C, or similar communication protocols. - High proficiency in SystemVerilog and hardware verification environments. - Experience understanding software and hardware co-simulation limitations and applying effective debug methods. - Programming and scripting experience in Python, Perl, C, or similar languages. - Professional, entrepreneurial, and open-minded approach with a can-do attitude, strong prioritization skills, and a customer-focused mindset. - Authorized to work in the United States and available to start immediately. Preferred Qualifications - Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field. - Hands-on experience with Palladium, Zebu, Veloce,