Astera Labs

Manager, Digital Design

Astera Labs$216K — $240K *
Information Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field.
  • Experience with PCIe, CXL, UAL, and ethernet digital design.
  • 3-5 years in engineering management or technical leadership for digital IC or ASIC design.
  • Proven track record of complete chip design from requirements to tape-out and shipment.
  • Hands-on expertise in developing front-end RTL with a focus on physical design.
  • Ability to lead and manage teams of 6-8 engineers effectively.

Responsibilities

  • Lead digital design execution from requirements through to product shipment.
  • Drive delivery of complex devices, ensuring clear milestones and technical oversight.
  • Collaborate with architecture teams to implement robust digital designs based on connectivity protocols.
  • Set expectations for high-quality RTL to facilitate rapid tape-out readiness.
  • Establish design checklists and coding standards to ensure efficiency and quality.
  • Resolve critical design issues in collaboration with cross-functional teams.
  • Mentor and develop a team of digital design engineers, promoting collaboration and accountability.

Benefits

  • Opportunity to influence product development in a hyper-growth environment.
  • Chance to establish scalable design practices.
  • Exposure to cutting-edge technology in AI infrastructure.
  • Collaboration with diverse engineering teams.
  • Growth potential within a rapidly expanding company.
Full Job Description
Role Overview

As Senior Manager/Manager, Digital Design, you will lead the front-end digital design of high-performance PCIe & CXL, UAL, ethernet devices that enable reliable connectivity in rack-scale AI infrastructure. You will guide projects from requirements and architecture through RTL development, verification, physical design, tape-out, and product shipment, ensuring that complex designs meet demanding performance, quality, and schedule objectives.

This is an opportunity to influence the development of purpose-built connectivity products at a hyper-growth company, establish scalable design practices, and help deliver silicon that advances the next generation of AI systems.

Key Responsibilities
  • End-to-End Chip Development
    • Lead digital design execution from product requirements and architecture through RTL, verification, tape-out, and production shipment.
    • Drive delivery of at least two complex devices, maintaining clear milestones, technical decisions, risk tracking, and schedule accountability.
    • Partner with architecture and system teams to translate PCIe & CXL, UAL, ethernet requirements into robust, scalable digital implementations.
  • RTL Quality and Tape-Out Readiness
    • Set expectations for high-quality front-end RTL that enables efficient synthesis, timing closure, physical implementation, and smooth tape-out.
    • Establish and maintain design checklists, review gates, coding standards, and signoff criteria across the digital design lifecycle.
    • Resolve design, performance, power, area, clocking, and integration issues in partnership with verification, physical design, DFT, and validation teams.
  • Team and Cross-Functional Leadership
    • Lead, mentor, and develop a team of 6-8 digital design engineers, fostering technical excellence, accountability, and effective collaboration.
    • Influence cross-functional development decisions and align engineering teams around quality, risk reduction, and on-time execution.
    • Communicate technical status, tradeoffs, dependencies, and mitigation plans to engineering and program leadership.

Basic Qualifications
  • Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
  • Experience with PCIe & CXL, UAL, ethernet digital design, including protocol implementation, high-speed connectivity requirements, and physical-layer considerations.
  • 3-5 years of experience in engineering management or technical leadership in digital IC or ASIC design.
  • Demonstrated ownership of chip design and development from requirements through tape-out and shipment for at least two devices of reasonable complexity.
  • Strong hands-on expertise developing front-end RTL and applying design practices that support predictable physical design progress and tape-out quality.
  • Ability to lead 6-8 engineers and influence execution across architecture, verification, physical design, DFT, firmware, validation, and operations.

Preferred Qualifications
  • Expertise in RTL quality methodologies, design reviews, lint, clock-domain and reset-domain considerations, synthesis, timing, and signoff readiness.
  • Experience defining or improving design checklists, development flows, quality gates, and cross-functional tape-out processes.
  • Building design blocks with large physical floorplan sizes is a plus
  • Track record of balancing performance, power, area, schedule, and risk across large SoC or ASIC programs.
  • Master's or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.

Salary range is $216,000 to $240,000 depending on experience, level, and business need. This role may be eligible for discretionary bonus, incentives and benefits.

About Astera Labs

Astera Labs is a semiconductor company that designs and develops purpose-built connectivity solutions for data-centric systems. The company's portfolio of products includes system-aware semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs), boards, and intellectual property (IP) that are used in data center servers, storage, and networking equipment. Astera Labs' products are designed to improve the performance, latency, and power consumption of data-centric systems. The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
Learn more about Astera Labs
Size
51 employees
Industry
Net Income
-$3 million
Founded
2018
Revenue
$5 million
NASDAQ

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