Hardware Design Engineering, Director - OEM, Silicon Validation Platforms & Rack-Scale Design - Taiwan

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 .

We are hiring a Director of Hardware Design Engineering — OEM, Silicon Validation Platforms & Rack-Scale Design to establish and lead Astera Labs' Taiwan hardware engineering center. This role serves as the primary hardware engineering hub for OEM customer engagement across Asia, while simultaneously owning the design and development of Silicon Validation Platforms (SVB/EVB) and rack-scale products (AI chassis, switch trays, CEM cards).

This is a high-impact leadership role that combines three critical functions:

OEM Design Enablement & Customer Support — Serving as the front-line hardware engineering partner for OEM customers in Asia (hyperscale cloud, server/switch OEMs, cable/module manufacturers) who are integrating Astera Labs silicon into their own products

Silicon Validation Platform Design (SVB/EVB) — Designing and delivering the evaluation boards and system validation platforms that enable silicon bring-up, characterization, customer evaluation, and reference design seeding

Rack-Scale Product Design — Designing AI chassis-class systems, switch trays, CEM cards, and system-level hardware that showcase Astera Labs' full connectivity portfolio

You will build and lead a multidisciplinary hardware engineering team in Taiwan — spanning electrical/PCB design, mechanical engineering, validation, and customer applications engineering. You'll serve as the senior Astera Labs hardware engineering leader in Asia, partnering with OEM customers, ODM partners, and contract manufacturers while maintaining tight alignment with the Santa Clara-based engineering organization.

Reporting to the Senior Director of Hardware Design Engineering, you'll operate with significant autonomy while ensuring strategic alignment on technology roadmap, design standards, and customer priorities.

Key Responsibilities

Taiwan Engineering Center Leadership

Establish, build, and lead Astera Labs' Taiwan hardware engineering center as the company's primary Asia-based hub for OEM engagement, silicon platform design, and rack-scale product development

Recruit, hire, and develop a high-caliber multidisciplinary engineering team in Taiwan, including:

Hardware/PCB design engineers

Mechanical engineers

Validation engineers

Customer/applications hardware engineers

Lab engineers

Define organizational structure, hiring roadmap, and operating model for the Taiwan center — balancing local autonomy with global alignment

Establish lab infrastructure in Taiwan to support silicon platform bring-up, customer demonstrations, OEM design reviews, interoperability testing, and rack-scale system validation

Drive engineering culture that emphasizes customer responsiveness, design excellence, and tight collaboration with Santa Clara headquarters

Serve as the senior Astera Labs engineering leader in Asia — representing the company with customers, partners, and industry stakeholders in the region

OEM Design Enablement & Customer Engagement

Customer Design Support:

Serve as the primary hardware engineering interface for OEM customers in Asia who are designing Astera Labs silicon (retimers, re-drivers, connectivity ASICs) into their own products

Provide expert-level design review support for customer hardware designs — reviewing schematics, PCB layouts, stackups, power delivery networks, thermal solutions, and signal integrity

Deliver hands-on technical engagement during customer design cycles — from initial architecture consultation through prototype bring-up, debug, and production readiness

Support customer hardware debug and troubleshooting when integration challenges arise — coordinating across internal teams (silicon, firmware, SI, validation) to provide rapid root-cause analysis and corrective guidance

Travel to customer sites across Asia (Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea) to provide on-site design review, bring-up support, and integration assistance for critical programs

Reference Design & Design Collateral Development:

Develop and maintain production-quality reference designs for Astera Labs silicon — including reference schematics, recommended PCB layouts, stackup guidelines, power delivery reference circuits, and thermal design examples

Create comprehensive hardware design guides, integration manuals, application notes, and best-practice documentation that enable OEM customers to achieve first-pass success

Develop design review checklists and self-assessment tools for OEM customers, supplemented by Astera Labs expert review at critical milestones

Ensure reference designs and collateral evolve with each silicon generation and incorporate lessons learned from customer engagements

OEM Relationship Management:

Build deep, trust-based technical relationships with hardware engineering teams at key OEM customers — becoming their preferred technical partner for Astera Labs silicon integration

Partner with Sales, FAE, and Product Management teams to identify high-value customer engagements and prioritize hardware engineering support resources

Participate in customer roadmap discussions, providing hardware engineering perspective on future silicon requirements, package options, and platform integration considerations

Capture common customer design challenges, failure modes, and feature requests — feeding these back into reference designs, design guides, evaluation platforms, and silicon requirements

Support joint development programs with strategic OEM partners — including co-designed products, custom form factors, and platform-specific optimizations

Silicon Validation Platform Design (SVB/EVB)

Platform Architecture & Design:

Own the architecture, design, and delivery of Silicon Validation Boards (SVB) and Evaluation Boards (EVB) for all Astera Labs silicon products — retimers, re-drivers, PCIe/CXL switches, and connectivity ASICs

Design complex multi-layer PCBs optimized for silicon bring-up, characterization, and performance demonstration — including high-speed channel routing, configurable topology options, comprehensive power delivery, and debug/instrumentation access

Ensure evaluation platforms provide optimal silicon exercising capability — enabling full characterization of all silicon features, performance modes, and operational corners

Design platforms that serve dual purposes: internal silicon validation and external customer evaluation/demonstration

Create modular, scalable platform architectures that can be efficiently adapted across silicon generations with minimal redesign

Silicon Bring-Up & Characterization Support:

Partner with silicon design and validation teams to ensure SVB/EVB designs support all required bring-up sequences, test modes, and characterization scenarios

Support initial silicon bring-up activities on new platforms — providing hardware debug expertise and rapid board-level modifications as needed

Ensure platform designs enable comprehensive performance characterization — including high-speed link testing, power measurement, thermal characterization, and margin analysis

Design instrumentation access (probe points, headers, measurement interfaces) that enables efficient silicon debug without compromising signal integrity

Customer Evaluation Enabl