PCIe Firmware Expert

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.

The Role and Its Impact

Our firmware team develops the embedded firmware that brings Astera Labs' compute connectivity silicon to life, from boot and initialization through link management, telemetry, error handling, and diagnostics. This firmware runs on the embedded processors inside our chips and ships in data centers powering AI infrastructure around the world. Beyond the firmware, the team also develops the COSMOS SDK, the software layer customers and internal teams use to configure, monitor, update, and debug our devices in their systems.

We are looking for an experienced firmware engineer and PCIe expert who enjoys working close to the hardware, owns features end to end, and has a proven track record of developing and debugging firmware both pre-silicon and post-silicon. You know PCIe in depth, from link training and enumeration to error handling and recovery, and you're the person others turn to when a PCIe link or device misbehaves. You understand the whole system, not just the chip: how our devices behave inside customer platforms, and how a customer requirement turns into firmware and SDK. You'll work alongside architects, design and verification engineers, validation teams, and our global firmware teams to take new products from early pre-silicon development through bring-up and into customer deployment.

What You'll Be Doing

• Having fun! by being part of a very strong and cohesive group.
• Design and develop real-time embedded firmware in C, including low-level drivers and control logic for complex hardware blocks
• Own PCIe firmware features end to end: link training, enumeration, error handling, and recovery
• Develop and debug firmware pre-silicon (emulation) and lead post-silicon bring-up and debug in the lab
• Debug complex PCIe and system-level issues with architecture, design, validation, and customer teams
• Develop and extend the company SDK in step with firmware features
• Support customer requests and adjust firmware and SDK development to meet their needs
  
  

• BSc/MSc in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field
• 10+ years of hands-on experience as a firmware engineer
• Proven experience in embedded and real-time firmware development
• Strong programming skills in C on resource-constrained, bare-metal, or RTOS-based systems
• Solid understanding of processor architecture, memory-mapped registers, interrupts, and HW/SW interaction
• Expert-level knowledge of PCIe: LTSSM and link training, enumeration, configuration space, error handling (AER), and reset and recovery flows
• Experience with PCIe protocol analyzers and exercisers (e.g., Teledyne LeCroy, Keysight)
• Proven hands-on experience in both pre-silicon and post-silicon firmware development and debugging, including silicon bring-up of new SoCs
• Strong debugging skills on real hardware using JTAG debuggers, logs, and register-level analysis
• Broad system-level understanding of how silicon, firmware, SDK, host software, and platform interact, with the ability to turn customer requirements into technical solutions
• A team player with excellent communication skills who works well in a collaborative, cross-site environment
• Comfort with ambiguity and ownership in a fast-moving, high-growth company