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.
Location: San Jose, CA (On-site).
About the Role
Astera Labs is seeking a Principal Photonics Package Architect to define and drive package architecture for next-generation photonics products for scale up and scale out AI infrastructure applications. This is a high-impact senior individual contributor role focused on aligning electrical, thermal, and mechanical design requirements across functions, enabling robust package implementation, and guiding package technology decisions for NPO and CPO products.
Responsibilities
- Define photonics package architecture, define electrical and optical interface specifications, and establish signal integrity and power integrity requirements.
- Establish and manage Thermal Design Power (TDP) budgets and thermal performance targets.
- Drive cross-functional alignment with EIC, PIC, and hardware teams on co-design constraints and drive system optical link budget.
- Partner with validation, test, and reliability teams to define DFT and DFR requirements and acceptance criteria.
- Finalize bump map and ball map, and manage ECOs and revision control of package design databases.
- Lead package-level design reviews and own the package design technical roadmap.
Basic Qualifications
- B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Physics, or a related field.
- 10+ years of experience in semiconductor or photonics package development, package design, or package integration, with demonstrated technical leadership.
- Strong understanding of package architecture tradeoffs across electrical, optical, thermal, mechanical, and manufacturability considerations.
- Experience working across chip, board, and system-level design electrical and optical interfaces in complex product development environments.
- Experience with package EDA tools and electrical simulation tools, including Cadence APD+ and Ansys HFSS.
- Experience with advanced packaging design, including 2.5D and 3D package architectures.
- Familiarity with package design flows, design database management, and engineering change control practices.
- Ability to drive technical decisions, resolve cross-functional issues, and communicate architecture direction clearly to stakeholders.
- Strong foundation in design reviews, risk assessment, and design quality from concept through production release.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with industry-standard optical interfaces and interconnect technologies relevant to package design.
- Experience with advanced photonics packaging technologies for data center interconnects.
- Experience supporting package bring-up and correlating design assumptions with validation results.
- Experience supporting cross-functional design closure with silicon, photonics, board, validation, test, and reliability teams.
- Knowledge of package design for NPO or CPO products.
Salary range is $185,000 to $240,000 depending on experience, level, and business need. This role may be eligible for discretionary bonus, incentives and benefits.
We know that creativity and innovation happen more often when teams include diverse ideas, backgrounds, and experiences, and we actively encourage everyone with relevant experience to apply, including people of color, LGBTQ+ and non-binary people, veterans, parents, and individuals with disabilities.
Skills Required
- B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
- 8+ years of experience in semiconductor or advanced packaging engineering with demonstrated technical leadership.
- Deep expertise in advanced packaging processes including 2.5D/3D integration, flip-chip, hybrid bonding, Cu pillar, TSV, RDL, and overmold across wafer-, panel-, and die-level flows.
- Experience with silicon photonics chip packaging and EIC/PIC integration.
- Hands-on experience with advanced packaging materials, including underfill, molding compounds, dielectrics, adhesives, or optical-grade encapsulants.
- Proven track record of equipment and process qualification with OSAT or tool suppliers.
- Experience with PDK development and packaging design rule authoring.
- Strong foundation in yield analysis, reliability characterization, and process capability methodologies such as Cpk and SPC.
- Hands-on experience with CPO or NPO product development.
- Experience with optical coupling or waveguide alignment for photonic integration.
- Familiarity with photonics chip design and photonics devices.
- Familiarity with DFM and DFT for advanced packaging.
Astera Labs Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Astera Labs and has not been reviewed or approved by Astera Labs.
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Healthcare Strength — Health plans are described as competitive and employer-subsidized, covering medical, dental, and vision for employees and dependents. Company materials and listings consistently emphasize strong core healthcare coverage.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Flexible time off is highlighted alongside paid company holidays, with guidance indicating generous PTO when coordinated with teams. Documented policies also point to robust time-off structures across locations.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Stock-based compensation is a meaningful part of total pay, with RSUs and an employee stock purchase plan noted as part of the package. Public-company status enhances perceived value and accessibility of equity components.
Astera Labs Insights
What We Do
Astera Labs Inc., a fabless semiconductor company headquartered in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, is a leader in purpose-built connectivity solutions for data-centric systems throughout the data center. Partnering with leading processor vendors, cloud service providers, seasoned investors, and world-class manufacturing companies, Astera Labs is helping customers remove performance bottlenecks in data-intensive systems that are limiting the true potential of applications such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. The company’s product portfolio includes system-aware semiconductor integrated circuits, boards, and services to enable robust CXL, PCIe, and Ethernet connectivity.
