Hardware Design Engineering, Senior Director - Signal Connectivity Rack-Scale Platforms

The role

The Senior Director, Hardware Design Engineering will lead and scale the hardware design engineering organization. This role involves overseeing electrical/PCB design, mechanical engineering, hardware validation, lab infrastructure, and customer hardware engineering support for connectivity products.

What you will do

• Lead and scale the hardware design engineering organization
• Manage electrical/PCB hardware design, mechanical engineering, and hardware validation
• Oversee lab engineering and infrastructure
• Provide customer hardware engineering and OEM enablement
• Build, mentor, and lead a team of engineering managers and senior individual contributors
• Define and manage the hardware technology roadmap
• Drive R&D and new product development for AEC, SCM, Silicon Evaluation Platforms, and rack-scale products
• Oversee products through the full design lifecycle from architecture to production release
• Direct mechanical engineering including connector design, thermal management, and chassis architecture
• Own the hardware validation strategy and execution

Required qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related technical discipline
• 18+ years of progressive experience in hardware design engineering for high-speed interconnect, transceiver/module, cable assembly, evaluation platforms, or rack-scale system products
• 8+ years in engineering management/leadership roles, including managing managers and building multi-team organizations
• Proven track record leading engineering teams through full product development lifecycle
• Deep technical expertise in high-speed PCB/substrate design, signal integrity, power delivery, and mixed-signal circuit design at 56G/112G PAM4 data rates or above
• Strong background in mechanical engineering for interconnect and system products
• Demonstrated experience establishing and executing hardware validation and qualification programs
• Experience building and managing hardware engineering lab infrastructure and measurement capabilities
• Proven experience engaging with OEM customers on hardware design enablement
• Proven ability to make strategic technology decisions and detailed technical trade-offs
• Experience managing engineering teams through hyper-growth
• Strong executive communication skills

Nice to have

• Master's or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with emphasis on high-speed interconnects, electromagnetic design, or mixed-signal systems
• Direct experience developing Active Electrical Cables (AEC), Smart Cable Modules (SCM), optical transceivers, or high-speed cable/connector assemblies
• Experience designing silicon evaluation platforms (EVBs/SVBs) for complex SoCs, ASICs, or connectivity silicon
• Experience developing rack-scale or chassis-class hardware products for data center, hyperscale, or AI infrastructure applications
• Track record of successful OEM design enablement
• Experience building and scaling customer-facing hardware engineering support organizations
• Experience with 224G/lane (1.6T aggregate) interconnect technology and next-generation substrate/connector/cable architectures
• Track record delivering connectivity products to hyperscale customers (AWS, Google, Microsoft, Meta, NVIDIA, or equivalent)
• Experience integrating retimer ASICs into cable module or system-level products
• Deep familiarity with relevant standards: IEEE 802.3ck/dj, OIF CEI-112G/224G, SFF-8636, CMIS 5.x+, OSFP, QSFP-DD, OCP specifications

Benefits

• discretionary bonus
• incentives
• benefits

About the company

Astera Labs provides rack-scale AI infrastructure through purpose-built connectivity solutions. The company is the connectivity backbone of rack-scale AI infrastructure.