Lab Strategy Engineer Intern

Location: San Jose, California, United States
Employment type: Internship

About the role

We are looking for a Lab Strategy Engineer Intern to support the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems that power silicon bring-up, validation, and hardware-engineering labs. This is a hands-on role spanning lab-facility planning, infrastructure analysis, project coordination, and executive reporting.

You will help track power, cooling, bench and rack utilization across multiple labs and support infrastructure planning for next-generation products, high-density AI/GPU racks, and thermal-validation equipment. You will collaborate with engineering, facilities, finance, procurement, and other partners to help labs meet demanding power, cooling, space, and operational requirements.

What you’ll do

• Perform three-phase power calculations for 208V and 480V systems and help analyze power requirements across lab spaces.

• Monitor power supply and distribution across labs, identify capacity or utilization gaps, and support clear reporting of findings.

• Track cooling capacity, including tons of cooling, and support planning for HVAC, CRAC, chilled-water loops, and liquid-cooling infrastructure such as cooling distribution units (CDUs).

• Analyze bench and rack utilization across multiple labs and prepare Excel analyses, dashboards, and executive summaries.

• Support infrastructure planning for high-density AI/GPU racks, thermal-validation equipment, silicon bring-up, and hardware-engineering lab environments.

• Coordinate lab build-out, equipment-procurement, and facility-expansion activities by tracking requirements, owners, timelines, dependencies, and open issues.

• Collaborate with engineering organizations, facilities, finance, procurement, and other stakeholders to align lab designs with power, cooling, space, safety, and product-validation needs.

• Support sensor interfacing and infrastructure automation using basic C programming and other approved technical approaches.

• Help document infrastructure assumptions, calculations, decisions, project status, and recommended next steps.

• Identify risks, constraints, and opportunities to improve lab capacity planning, utilization, reporting, and repeatable project workflows.

• Own a defined internship project with mentor support, provide progress updates, and present the project’s findings, documentation, and recommendations at the end of the internship.

What you bring

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering; new graduates or candidates with up to one year of experience may be considered.

• Proficiency in basic C programming for sensor interfacing and automation.

• Strong knowledge of electrical power distribution and electrical calculations.

• Working understanding of air-conditioning principles and liquid cooling in laboratory or data-center environments.

• Strong attention to detail and ability to analyze data using Excel, dashboards, and executive summaries.

• Foundational project-management skills and ability to coordinate across engineering, facilities, finance, procurement, and other teams.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to explain technical findings clearly to engineering and executive audiences.

• Ability to manage multiple priorities, maintain accurate documentation, follow through on commitments, and adapt when project scope or priorities change.

• A safety-conscious, collaborative, learning-oriented approach and sound judgment in a hands-on lab environment.

Preferred qualifications

• Familiarity with Oracle Fusion Cloud or other enterprise resource planning systems.

• Exposure to building-management systems, facilities monitoring, or infrastructure controls.

• Familiarity with electrostatic-discharge (ESD) protocols and safe practices in semiconductor or hardware-validation environments.

• Experience or coursework related to semiconductor validation labs, data centers, high-density compute, thermal testing, or lab facilities.

• Experience with dashboards, capacity planning, project tracking, or executive reporting.

• Agentic AI programming skills or interest in applying AI to infrastructure monitoring, analysis, or automation.

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.

Internship experience and compensation

This is a paid, hourly U.S. internship. The applicable hourly rate is determined as part of the offer process and specified in the offer letter, depending on education level ranges from $35/hour to $55/hour. U.S. interns currently receive a $500-per-week housing/relocation stipend for the duration of the internship. Interns participate in Early Career programming, including technical and professional-development sessions, community events, and an end-of-program project presentation.