Hardware Design Engineer Intern

Hardware Design Engineer - Intern 

Location: San Jose, California 
Employment type: Internship 
Organization: Hardware Engineering / Electrical Design 

About Astera Labs 

Astera Labs is a fabless semiconductor company developing intelligent connectivity solutions for AI and cloud infrastructure. Our products help connect compute, memory, and storage systems through high-performance interconnect technologies, including PCIe, Ethernet, and CXL. 

As an intern, you’ll contribute to meaningful engineering projects alongside experienced professionals and gain hands-on experience with hardware that supports products from design through validation. 

Role overview 

As a Hardware Design Engineer Intern, you’ll join the Electrical Design team within Hardware Engineering. You’ll support the development of boards and hardware platforms used to bring up, validate, and deliver Astera Labs connectivity products. 

This hands-on internship may include schematic design, component selection, PCB layout support, design reviews, laboratory debugging, and engineering documentation. You’ll collaborate with teams across hardware design, signal integrity, power integrity, validation, firmware, NPI, and manufacturing. 

Responsibilities 

• Support the translation of product and system requirements into electrical design inputs. 

• Create, update, and review schematics using OrCAD design tools. 

• Research and evaluate components using datasheets, electrical specifications, availability, package information, and footprint details. 

• Assist with component symbols, footprints, attributes, part numbers, and manufacturer information. 

• Support the generation and review of netlists, bills of materials, and other design data. 

• Assist with PCB placement and routing activities in collaboration with CAD, signal-integrity, and power-integrity engineers. 

• Participate in electrical-rules checks and other design-quality reviews. 

• Prepare materials for design reviews, including schematics, comparison data, and open-item lists. 

• Support board bring-up, debug, and characterization in the laboratory using equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, multimeters, and power supplies. 

• Help investigate board-level issues involving power rails, clocks, resets, digital interfaces, connectors, signal quality, or assembly. 

• Work with cross-functional teams to reproduce issues, track action items, and support hardware builds and testing. 

• Contribute to design-release packages, including schematics, BOMs, layout data, manufacturing files, and design notes. 

• Clearly document assumptions, analyses, test results, issues, and recommendations. 

• Present project results and key learnings at the end of the internship. 

Basic qualifications 

• Currently pursuing a bachelor’s, master’s, or PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field. 

• Coursework or project experience in circuits, electronics, digital design, computer architecture, signal analysis, power electronics, or PCB design. 

• Ability to read and interpret schematics, datasheets, and basic electrical requirements. 

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with attention to detail. 

• Hands-on, curious, and open-minded approach to learning and solving problems. 

• Ability to work with guidance, follow through on assigned tasks, and communicate clearly. 

Required experience 

• Hands-on electrical-design experience through coursework, research, personal projects, design teams, or a prior internship. 

• Familiarity with schematic capture, component selection, PCB concepts, or basic design reviews. 

• Interest in working in a laboratory environment and learning to use electrical measurement and debugging equipment. 

Preferred experience 

• Familiarity with OrCAD Capture, Cadence Allegro tools. 

• Experience with schematic design, PCB layout, BOM creation, component libraries, or electrical-rules checking. 

• Exposure to high-speed digital interfaces or connectivity technologies such as PCIe, Ethernet, CXL, or related serial links. 

• Basic understanding of signal-integrity or power-integrity concepts, such as impedance, return paths, decoupling, power distribution, voltage drop, or transient behavior. 

• Experience with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, multimeters, power supplies, signal generators, or programmable loads. 

• Familiarity with JTAG, I2C, SMBus, SPI, UART, or similar control and debug interfaces. 

• Experience using Python, MATLAB, spreadsheets, or similar tools to analyze data or automate measurements. 

• Project, research, or internship experience in semiconductors, hardware, PCB design, embedded systems, suppliers, or manufacturing. 

What success looks like 

• Early in the internship: You complete required training, meet your mentor and key stakeholders, and learn the team’s design and review processes. 

• As you develop: You apply your academic and project experience to defined tasks, make steady progress, and communicate questions and findings clearly. 

• Throughout the internship: You build trust through curiosity, collaboration, accurate work, and reliable follow-through. 

• By the end of the internship: You complete a defined deliverable in areas such as schematic design, PCB support, board bring-up, debugging, automation, or documentation. 

• Final presentation: You clearly explain your approach, results, contributions, and key learnings to the team. 

Equal opportunity

Astera Labs is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. We encourage anyone with relevant experience to apply.