Platform Solutions Thermal Engineer

Location: Research Triangle Park (Cary), North Carolina

About Astera Labs

Astera Labs provides rack-scale AI infrastructure through purpose-built connectivity solutions. Our Intelligent Connectivity Platform brings together technologies including PCIe®, CXL®, Ethernet, NVLink, and UALink™ with the COSMOS software suite to help customers build cohesive, flexible AI systems.

The Role and Its Impact

As a Platform Solutions Thermal Engineer, you will help ensure that Astera Labs connectivity solutions operate reliably within real systems and customer platforms. You will work at the intersection of thermal engineering, platform architecture, system validation, and customer enablement—turning thermal requirements and measurements into reliable, scalable platform solutions.

You will collaborate across mechanical, electrical, silicon, firmware, system validation, applications, and ecosystem teams to understand thermal behavior, evaluate design tradeoffs, investigate issues, and communicate clear recommendations. This role is an opportunity to work close to hardware and real systems while contributing to the performance and reliability of AI infrastructure.

What You’ll Do

• Analyze thermal performance of connectivity products and platform-level systems across representative operating conditions and use cases.

• Apply fundamentals of heat transfer, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and thermal management to identify risks and opportunities for improvement.

• Develop and execute thermal characterization and validation plans, including test setups, instrumentation, data collection, and repeatable procedures.

• Correlate analytical or simulation results with laboratory measurements and use data to identify root causes and guide design decisions.

• Investigate thermal issues across the hardware and system boundary, including temperature limits, cooling constraints, airflow, heat spreading, and system integration factors.

• Partner with mechanical, electrical, silicon, firmware, system validation, applications, and ecosystem teams to resolve issues and deliver integrated solutions.

• Support platform bring-up, product integration, customer or partner evaluations, and technical debug activities.

• Develop scripts and test utilities—such as Python- or MATLAB-based automation—to improve data collection, analysis, repeatability, and engineering efficiency.

• Document test methods, assumptions, results, limitations, design tradeoffs, and recommendations in clear technical reports.

• Participate in design reviews, technical discussions, issue-tracking workflows, and cross-functional problem-solving activities.

What You Bring

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or a related thermal, mechanical, or energy discipline.

• Coursework, project, research, or laboratory experience in heat transfer, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, thermal management, or related engineering fundamentals.

• Working knowledge of structured problem solving, measurement, data analysis, and technical documentation.

• Ability to interpret system requirements, mechanical or electrical drawings, specifications, test results, and thermal data.

• Experience with Python, MATLAB, or another scripting language for automation, analysis, or engineering workflows.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain technical findings and tradeoffs clearly.

• Collaborative mindset, learning agility, ownership, and the ability to execute effectively in a cross-functional environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with thermal modeling, computational fluid dynamics, finite-element analysis, or other engineering simulation methods.

• Hands-on experience with temperature sensors, thermocouples, data-acquisition systems, thermal chambers, infrared imaging, airflow measurement, or similar laboratory equipment.

• Familiarity with heat sinks, cold plates, heat pipes, thermal interface materials, fans, airflow management, or other cooling technologies.

• Experience correlating simulation or analytical predictions with hardware measurements and updating models based on test data.

• Exposure to high-speed connectivity, semiconductor devices, retimers, switches, NICs, servers, or AI-infrastructure platforms.

• Experience building automated test flows, analyzing large data sets, or improving laboratory and validation processes.

• Prior internship, co-op, capstone, research, or project experience involving thermal, mechanical, semiconductor, networking, computing, or data-center systems.

Compensation

The base salary range for North Carolina NCG roles is $130,000–$150,000. Compensation details will be provided as part of the offer process and determined in accordance with applicable company guidelines.

Equal Opportunity

Astera Labs is committed to equal employment opportunity and to building an inclusive workplace. Employment decisions are based on qualifications, skills, experience, and business needs.