Lab Strategy Engineer NCG

Location: San Jose, California, United States
Employment type: Full-time, regular

About the role

We are looking for a Lab Strategy Engineer NCG to support the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems that power silicon bring-up, validation, and hardware-engineering labs. This is a hands-on engineering role spanning lab-facility planning, infrastructure analysis, project coordination, and executive reporting.

You will help track power, cooling, bench and rack utilization across multiple labs and support infrastructure planning for next-generation products, high-density AI/GPU racks, and thermal-validation equipment. You will collaborate with engineering, facilities, finance, procurement, and other partners to help labs meet demanding power, cooling, space, safety, and operational requirements.

What you’ll do

• Perform three-phase power calculations for 208V and 480V systems and analyze power requirements across lab spaces.

• Monitor power supply and distribution across labs, identify capacity or utilization gaps, and communicate findings through clear technical reports.

• Track cooling capacity, including tons of cooling, and support planning for HVAC, CRAC, chilled-water loops, and liquid-cooling infrastructure such as cooling distribution units (CDUs).

• Analyze bench and rack utilization across multiple labs and prepare Excel analyses, dashboards, and executive summaries.

• Support infrastructure planning for high-density AI/GPU racks, thermal-validation equipment, silicon bring-up, and hardware-engineering lab environments.

• Coordinate lab build-out, equipment-procurement, and facility-expansion activities by tracking requirements, owners, timelines, dependencies, risks, and open issues.

• Collaborate with engineering organizations, facilities, finance, procurement, and other stakeholders to align lab designs with power, cooling, space, safety, and product-validation needs.

• Develop or support sensor interfacing and infrastructure automation using basic C programming and other approved technical approaches.

• Document infrastructure assumptions, calculations, decisions, project status, capacity needs, and recommended next steps.

• Identify risks, constraints, and opportunities to improve lab capacity planning, utilization, reporting, and repeatable project workflows.

• Contribute to lab strategy, scaling, and roadmap activities by translating infrastructure data into practical engineering and investment recommendations.

• Prepare technical and executive-ready summaries that make lab capacity, infrastructure tradeoffs, and project status easy to understand.

What you bring

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering; new graduates or candidates with up to one year of experience may be considered.

• Proficiency in basic C programming for sensor interfacing and automation.

• Strong knowledge of electrical power distribution and electrical calculations.

• Working understanding of air-conditioning principles and liquid cooling in laboratory or data-center environments.

• Strong attention to detail and ability to analyze data using Excel, dashboards, and executive summaries.

• Foundational project-management skills and ability to coordinate across engineering, facilities, finance, procurement, and other teams.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to explain technical findings clearly to engineering and executive audiences.

• Ability to manage multiple priorities, maintain accurate documentation, follow through on commitments, and adapt when project scope or priorities change.

• A safety-conscious, collaborative, learning-oriented approach and sound judgment in a hands-on lab environment.

Preferred qualifications

• Familiarity with Oracle Fusion Cloud or other enterprise resource planning systems.

• Exposure to building-management systems, facilities monitoring, or infrastructure controls.

• Familiarity with electrostatic-discharge (ESD) protocols and safe practices in semiconductor or hardware-validation environments.

• Experience or coursework related to semiconductor validation labs, data centers, high-density compute, thermal testing, or lab facilities.

• Experience with dashboards, capacity planning, project tracking, executive reporting, or lab-equipment tracking.

• Agentic AI programming skills or interest in applying AI to infrastructure monitoring, analysis, or automation.

Equal opportunity

Astera Labs is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. We encourage anyone with relevant experience to apply.

Compensation and total rewards

For this Engineering NCG role in Santa Clara County, the current 2026 base salary framework for candidates with no previous experience lists $140,000 for a B.S. and $155,000 for an M.S. The current target bonus is 20%, with a new-hire RSU grant framework of $70,000 for a B.S. and $85,000 for an M.S. Final compensation is determined based on level, degree, and relevant experience.