Senior Principal Engineer, Security Architect (2026- 346)Location: San Jose, CA
Role OverviewAstera Labs is building the connectivity backbone of the AI era, and the platforms we ship power the world's largest AI clusters. As Senior Principal Engineer, Security Architect, you'll be the most senior technical authority defining how security is designed into everything we build - from silicon and firmware to the cloud services, tools, and enterprise systems that support them.
This is a hands-on, deeply technical architect role for someone who wants to shape security at a hyper-growth semiconductor company enabling rack-scale AI infrastructure. You'll set architectural direction, drive threat modeling and secure-by-design reviews across product and IT, and partner with engineering, product security, GRC, and IT leadership to raise the security bar in a fast-moving environment.
Key Responsibilities- Security Architecture & Strategy
- Define and own the end-to-end security architecture across product (silicon, firmware, systems) and enterprise (cloud, SaaS, IT) domains
- Establish security reference architectures, design patterns, and standards that scale across teams and product lines
- Partner with engineering and IT leaders to align architectural direction with business, product, and compliance priorities
- Threat Modeling & Secure-by-Design
- Lead threat modeling, attack surface analysis, and security design reviews for new products, features, and platforms
- Drive secure development lifecycle (SDL) practices, including requirements, design, implementation, and validation gates
- Evaluate cryptography, key management, secure boot, attestation, and supply chain integrity approaches for hardware and firmware
- Enterprise & Cloud Architecture
- Architect zero-trust, identity, network, and data protection controls across the Microsoft-centric enterprise (Azure, Entra, M365) and SaaS ecosystem
- Guide secure design of build, CI/CD, developer, and EDA/tooling environments
- Define standards for logging, telemetry, and detection engineering inputs in partnership with security operations
- Partnership & Technical Leadership
- Serve as a trusted advisor to engineering, product, IT, and GRC leadership on complex security trade-offs
- Translate architectural direction into pragmatic, prioritized roadmaps and measurable outcomes
- Mentor engineers and architects across the organization, elevating security capability company-wide
Basic Qualifications- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field
- 12+ years of progressive experience in security engineering and architecture across product and/or enterprise domains
- Demonstrated expertise designing secure architectures spanning hardware/firmware, software, cloud, and enterprise IT
- Deep knowledge of cryptography, identity and access management, network security, and modern threat models (e.g., MITRE ATT&CK)
- Hands-on experience with cloud security architecture (Azure preferred) and Microsoft enterprise environments (Entra, M365, Active Directory)
- Proven ability to influence engineering and executive stakeholders and drive complex, cross-functional security initiatives
Preferred Qualifications- Advanced degree (MS or PhD) in a security-related discipline
- Industry certifications such as CISSP-ISSAP, SABSA, TOGAF, Azure Security Engineer/Architect, or equivalent demonstrated experience
- Experience in the semiconductor, hardware, or hyperscale infrastructure industry, including familiarity with PCIe, CXL, or high-speed connectivity technologies
- Experience with secure boot, hardware root of trust, attestation, confidential computing, and supply chain security
- Familiarity with regulatory and industry frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIST, and data privacy regulations
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.
