Sr. Principal Program Manager, ASIC Post-Silicon Engineering

Role Overview

Astera Labs is seeking a Sr. Principal Program Manager, ASIC Post-Silicon Engineering to lead execution of complex post-silicon programs for AI connectivity products. This role owns cross-functional program delivery from silicon power-on through bring-up, validation, qualification, customer sampling, and release to manufacturing - RTM, aligning engineering execution with product, customer, and business milestones.

The ideal candidate brings deep experience leading technically complex semiconductor or systems programs involving silicon, firmware, software, platform, validation, manufacturing, and customer readiness. They are highly effective at driving cross-functional alignment, managing program risk, and communicating crisply with both engineering teams and executive stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Program Ownership and Execution

  • Own the integrated post-silicon program plan from silicon power-on through bring-up, validation, qualification, customer sampling, and RTM, ensuring alignment across silicon, firmware/software, platform, compliance, production test and manufacturing milestones.
  • Drive program schedules, budgets, resources, interdependencies, and risk management, balancing scope, schedule, and cost trade-offs while maintaining clear communication with executives and key stakeholders.
  • Drive validation readiness and execution alignment for high-speed connectivity products, including validation plan coverage, firmware and hardware readiness, test content, platform availability, and milestone tracking for technologies such as PCIe, Ethernet, SerDes, and platform-level interconnect solutions.
  • Manage phase-gate exit criteria, readiness checkpoints, dashboards, and decision forums to support predictable delivery and rapid cross-functional decision-making.

• Stakeholder Management and Cross-Functional Leadership

  • Lead cross-functional execution across engineering, product, operations, quality, manufacturing, and customer-facing teams.
  • Drive internal technical issue resolution through structured triage, escalation management, milestone reviews, and executive reporting; surface risks early, drive accountability, and enable timely decisions and recovery plans.
  • Align priorities, trade-offs, readiness criteria, and launch decisions with business and customer goals across stakeholders.

• Customer Sampling and Release to Manufacturing

  • Own customer sampling readiness, including sample allocation, validation exit criteria, firmware/software readiness, known-issue documentation, errata, release notes, reference platforms, and validation summaries.
  • Drive customer-facing issue resolution and escalation management in partnership with product management, applications engineering, sales, quality, and engineering teams, ensuring materials and support plans are aligned with deployment.
  • Lead cross-functional execution from engineering validation through RTM phase-gate exit.
  • Partner with product engineering, test engineering, operations, manufacturing, supply chain, and quality teams to drive manufacturing readiness reviews, production ramp execution, and production-release approvals, including ATE readiness, characterization, yield learning, failure analysis, reliability qualification, waivers, and errata.

Basic Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in semiconductor engineering, post-silicon validation, system validation, silicon bring-up, product engineering, product applications, FAE, or technical program management with a strong technical background.
• Strong experience leading post-silicon execution for complex ASIC, SoC, FPGA, SerDes, Ethernet, PCIe, CXL, networking, AI infrastructure, cloud, data center, or high-performance compute products.
• Demonstrated ability to manage products from first silicon through validation, customer sampling, qualification, RTM, and manufacturing readiness.
• Deep understanding of silicon validation flows, including bring-up, debug, characterization, interoperability, compliance, regression execution and issue triage.
• Experience managing FW development cycle, experience with JIRA, Confluence, dashboards, issue-tracking systems.
• Experience working with cross-functional teams across architecture, silicon design, firmware, software, electrical validation, system validation, product engineering, test, manufacturing, quality, operations, applications engineering, and customer-facing organizations.
• Strong technical knowledge in one or more of the following:
  • High-speed SerDes
  • Ethernet, PCIe, CXL, NVMe, or similar protocols
  • AI server, networking, or data center platforms
  • Signal integrity, eye diagrams, jitter, noise, impedance, and link training
  • FEC, protocol compliance, and interoperability validation
  • Firmware/hardware/software interaction
  • Board, platform, and system-level debug
  • Electrical validation and lab-based debug
  • Optical or Active electrical modules
• Proven experience managing executive communications, program dashboards, milestones, dependencies, technical risks, issue escalations, and launch-readiness reviews.
• Ability to operate effectively in fast-paced, ambiguous, technically complex environments with aggressive product schedules.

Salary range is $205,000 to $250,000 depending on experience, level, and business need. This role may be eligible for discretionary bonus, incentives and benefits.