Principal Electrical Design Engineer

Board Hardware Engineering Department: Hardware Engineering Reports To: [Engineering Leadership] Job Type: Full-Time, Exempt Level: Principal Electrical Design Engineer (L4) Location: San Jose, On-site

We are seeking a Principal Electrical Design Engineer to define and drive the architecture, design, and technical strategy for advanced board-level hardware across next-generation networking and high-performance connectivity platforms. This role encompasses complex hardware systems including chassis boards, NIC cards, PCIe Gen6 platforms, and 800G Ethernet products.

This is a principal-level technical leadership role requiring deep domain expertise, strategic vision, and organizational influence. You will set the technical direction for board architecture, establish design methodologies, drive innovation in high-speed system design, and serve as the top technical authority across multiple programs. You will partner with and influence silicon, SI/PI, mechanical, firmware, manufacturing, system, and executive teams to deliver industry-leading products from concept through production and beyond.

Define and own the board-level hardware architecture and technical roadmap across multiple product lines and platform generations

Establish design standards, methodologies, and best practices that scale across the hardware engineering organization

Drive architectural tradeoff decisions for complex multi-layer PCBs integrating high-speed digital, analog, and mixed-signal circuitry, balancing performance, cost, schedule, and manufacturability

Get involved and drive discussions on stack-up strategy, impedance optimization and other SI relates development work

Own power delivery architecture strategy including multi-rail regulation topologies, advanced sequencing schemes, transient response optimization, protection philosophies, and power budgeting across platform generations

Define and evolve hardware implementation strategies for management and control interfaces such as I2C, SPI, GPIO, MDIO, and debug and observability architectures

Own schematic capture and board-level design for complex multi-layer PCBs with high-speed digital, analog, and mixed-signal circuitry

Serve as the technical authority for board-level hardware development across high-performance server and connectivity platforms, including NIC cards, PCIe add-in cards, and chassis-integrated hardware

Provide technical oversight and approval for schematic capture and board-level designs across multiple designs

Lead component strategy and qualification roadmaps in partnership with suppliers, sourcing, and manufacturing teams

Drive design-for-excellence initiatives including DFT, DFM, and DFR to systematically improve manufacturability, yield, reliability, and production readiness across all programs

Define and own the bring-up and validation strategy for new hardware platforms, establishing frameworks that improve first-pass success rates across the organization

Lead root-cause analysis of the most complex and escalated hardware issues across high-speed interfaces, power delivery, clocks, resets, and control paths

Drive systemic improvements to debug methodologies, validation coverage, and failure analysis processes

Partner with firmware, software, and system teams to define and validate initialization sequences, telemetry, diagnostics, and platform-level functionality

Own corrective action frameworks and feed lessons learned into design standards and review processes

Serve as the technical point of escalation and decision-maker for hardware design challenges across the organization

Work closely with SI/PI, mechanical, thermal, firmware, system, and manufacturing teams throughout the product lifecycle, driving alignment and resolving cross-domain technical conflicts

Interface with silicon vendors and internal ASIC teams at a strategic level on platform architecture, bring-up, errata resolution, compliance, and next-generation readiness

Mentor and develop senior and lead engineers, raising the technical bar across the hardware engineering team

Lead and contribute to design reviews and architectural reviews, and technical publications that advance the team’s collective expertise

Represent the hardware engineering organization in executive reviews, customer engagements, and industry forums as needed

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a closely related field; advanced degree preferred

12+ years of progressive hardware design experience with deep expertise in board-level electrical engineering and demonstrated technical leadership across multiple product generations

Extensive track record of architecting and delivering production hardware for server, networking, storage, or high-performance compute systems at scale

Expert-level experience with high-speed SerDes-based systems supporting Ethernet, PCIe, or related protocols; deep hands-on experience with PCIe Gen5/Gen6 and 400G/800G Ethernet system design

Expert understanding of signal integrity fundamentals including impedance control, differential pair routing, channel loss optimization, crosstalk mitigation, and layout review for high-speed interfaces

Expert power integrity and PDN design knowledge including advanced sequencing, decoupling strategies, transient response optimization, and power architecture tradeoffs at system level

Mastery of industry-standard schematic capture and PCB design and review tools such as Cadence Allegro or OrCAD

Proven track record leading hardware bring-up and debug of complex platforms using oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers, and advanced lab instrumentation

Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams and influence technical direction across organizational boundaries from architecture through validation and production

Strong track record of mentoring engineers and elevating team capabilities

Experience defining architecture for NIC cards, accelerator cards, or other PCIe add-in card platforms across multiple generations

Experience leading server chassis or system board design programs in dense, thermally constrained, high-availability environments

Deep expertise with 800G Ethernet and emerging 1.6T electrical interfaces and system integration challenges

Experience architecting solutions using retimers, redrivers, advanced clocking architectures, and high-speed interconnect subsystems

Expertise in compliance and validation workflows for PCIe and Ethernet platforms, including contributions to industry specifications or standards bodies

Experience driving contract manufacturer relationships, production ramp strategies, and yield optimization for complex hardware products

Scripting and automation proficiency in Python or similar languages for lab automation, measurement analysis, hardware characterization workflows, and design flow optimization

Experience influencing product strategy and roadmap decisions at the organizational level

Base pay range for this role is $185,000 - $240,000. Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions.

We know that creativity and innovation happen more often when teams include diverse ideas, backgrounds, and experiences, and we actively encourage everyone with relevant experience to apply, including people of color, LGBTQ+ and non-binary people, veterans, parents, and individuals with disabilities.