Astera Labs Inc.
Optical FW/SW Engineer – Tech Lead
San Jose, California, United States · Senior
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odds of building a lasting career here
Sponsors, but it's cap-subject — you still face the weighted lottery (~61% per draw at Level IV). Good if you win; have a cap-exempt backup on your list.
Lottery odds assume a STEM candidate.
Personalize to your clock →H-1B wage level
the lottery is wage-weighted — each level is one more entry
$27,075 more — $187,075 — moves this role to Level II and 2 lottery entries. That figure is inside the range the employer already advertised.
Based on the DOL prevailing wage for this occupation and worksite, a base salary of $187,075 would place this position at wage Level II. That figure is within the posted range, and I'd like to target it. This role classifies under "Software Developers" for prevailing-wage purposes.
DOL prevailing wage, 2026-27 wage year · Software Developers (15-1252) · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA. Wage level is derived by USCIS from the offered wage, occupation and worksite; the occupation shown is inferred from the job title.
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About the role
- This role sits at the intersection of embedded systems, optics, and hardware.
- Your work will help enable reliable, scalable connectivity for rack-scale AI infrastructure as Astera Labs advances the transition to higher-bandwidth optical interconnects.
Responsibilities
- Architect, develop, optimize, and maintain production-quality embedded firmware for optical engines, PIC/EIC platforms, and optical modules.
- Implement software in C on embedded processors using bare-metal or RTOS-based designs.
- Develop Python scripts and tools for unit-testing, configuration, automation, characterization, manufacturing test, and data analysis.
- Develop control algorithms for modulator operation, automatic power control, temperature compensation, calibration, and link adaptation.
- Optimize firmware for latency, power efficiency, control stability, and performance across evolving optical architectures.
- Lead firmware and hardware bring-up, including board initialization, peripheral integration, lab debugging, and root-cause analysis.
- Partner with optical, electrical, DSP, systems, and validation teams to characterize, tune, and qualify optical products.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, or a related technical field.
- 5-8 years of experience developing embedded firmware or software for optical, photonics, communications, semiconductor, or other high-reliability products.
- Experience with RTOS-based embedded development, embedded programming methods, hardware interfaces, and low-level device control.
- Proven experience with unit testing, version control, debugging, and hardware bring-up.
- Ability to analyze and resolve complex problems across firmware, hardware, optical control algorithms, and system-level behavior.
Nice to have
- Experience with optical module management, CMIS, telemetry, diagnostics, or control requirements.
- Experience with optical engines, pluggable optics, silicon photonics, PIC/EIC integration, NPO, or CPO.
- Knowledge of lasers, modulators, photodetectors, TIAs, thermal tuning, wavelength control, calibration, and high-speed optical link behavior.
- Familiarity with JTAG, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, optical test equipment, and protocol analyzers.
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Skills
- Optical Firmware Architecture and Development
- Optical Control and Performance Optimization
- Hardware Bring-Up, Product Validation, and Quality
- Integrate firmware with photodetectors, TIAs, ADCs, DACs, sensors, drivers, DSPs, and hardware control interfaces such as I2C and SPI.
- Apply disciplined version-control, code-review, documentation, and release practices throughout the development lifecycle.
Compensation
- Develop control algorithms for modulator operation, automatic power control, temperature compensation, calibration, and link adaptation.
Benefits
- Implement telemetry, diagnostics, monitoring, and fault-handling features that improve optical-link health, reliability, and serviceability.
- Establish unit-testing strategies and maintain automated tests that improve firmware quality, coverage, and release confidence.
This listing is sourced directly from Astera Labs Inc.'s careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.