New

Senior Principal Engineer, Offensive Security (2026-345)

San Jose, California, United States

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.

 

 

Senior Principal Engineer, Offensive Security (2026-345)

Location: San Jose, CA

Role Overview

Astera Labs is building the connectivity fabric powering rack-scale AI, and securing that fabric is mission-critical. As Senior Principal Engineer, Offensive Security, you'll be our most senior technical authority on adversarial testing — proactively finding, exploiting, and helping remediate weaknesses across our silicon, firmware, systems, cloud, and corporate environments before adversaries can.

This is a hands-on, deeply technical role for a proven offensive security leader who wants outsized impact at a hyper-growth semiconductor company enabling the world's largest AI clusters. You'll set the technical direction for red teaming, penetration testing, and offensive research, partner closely with product and IT security teams, and help harden the platforms that hyperscalers rely on.

Key Responsibilities

  • Offensive Security Strategy & Execution

    • Define and lead Astera Labs' offensive security strategy across hardware, firmware, software, cloud, and enterprise IT

    • Plan and execute red team, penetration testing, and adversary emulation engagements against production and pre-production assets

    • Establish scope, rules of engagement, and success metrics for offensive programs in partnership with security leadership

  • Technical Depth & Research

    • Conduct advanced vulnerability research and exploit development across hardware/firmware, embedded systems, and cloud/SaaS environments

    • Drive threat modeling, attack surface analysis, and adversary simulation aligned to real-world threat actors (e.g., MITRE ATT&CK)

    • Prototype tooling and automation to scale offensive testing and continuous validation of controls

  • Partnership & Remediation

    • Partner with product security, engineering, IT, and GRC teams to prioritize findings, drive remediation, and validate fixes

    • Communicate complex technical risk clearly to engineering leaders and executives, translating exploits into actionable business impact

    • Contribute to secure-by-design reviews, threat models, and architecture guidance for new products and platforms

  • Leadership & Culture

    • Mentor security engineers and elevate offensive security capability across the organization

    • Represent Astera Labs' security posture with customers, partners, and (as appropriate) the broader research community

    • Champion a builder mindset that pairs rigorous adversarial testing with pragmatic, engineering-friendly remediation

Basic Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field

  • 12+ years of experience in offensive security, including red teaming, penetration testing, and/or vulnerability research

  • Demonstrated expertise in at least two of the following domains: hardware/firmware security, embedded systems, cloud (Azure preferred) and SaaS security, network and application penetration testing, or Active Directory / Microsoft enterprise environments

  • Proficiency with offensive tooling and exploit development in languages such as Python, C/C++, and assembly

  • Deep understanding of modern attacker tradecraft, TTPs, and frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK

  • Proven track record of driving remediation and measurable security improvements in partnership with engineering teams

Preferred Qualifications

  • Advanced degree (MS or PhD) in a security-related discipline

  • Industry certifications such as OSCP, OSEP, OSED, GXPN, GPEN, or equivalent demonstrated experience

  • Experience in the semiconductor, hardware, or hyperscale infrastructure industry, including exposure to PCIe, CXL, or high-speed connectivity technologies

  • Published research, CVEs, conference talks (Black Hat, DEF CON, etc.), or notable open-source contributions

  • Familiarity with secure development lifecycle, threat modeling methodologies, and product security programs

    Salary range is $190,000 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.

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Education

Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Astera Labs’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Select...
Select...
Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.