System Validation Engineer Intern at Astera Labs

System Validation Intern

Location: San Jose, California, United States

Employment type: Internship

About the role

We are looking for a System Validation Intern to help validate hardware, firmware, and applications together as an integrated system. This is a hands-on opportunity to work at the intersection of software and hardware while helping improve validation coverage and accelerate deployment of next-generation data-center connectivity products.

You will collaborate with system validation, firmware, hardware, software quality, interoperability, compliance, and Product Applications teams. The right candidate is curious, execution-focused, comfortable troubleshooting from data, and eager to own a scoped validation project with guidance from experienced engineers.

What you’ll do

• Define test specifications and deliver repeatable test workflows for system-level validation.
• Execute functional, performance, stress, reliability, interoperability, regression, and end-to-end validation scenarios.
• Automate feature validation and develop scripts or utilities that improve test coverage, repeatability, and reporting.
• Investigate issues across hardware, firmware, software, and applications by reproducing failures, analyzing logs and telemetry, and documenting clear findings.
• Generate comprehensive validation reports, record test results, summarize pass/fail trends, and communicate risks, known issues, and recommended next steps.
• Support lab setup and maintain test environments, devices under test, configurations, firmware versions, and required tools.
• Track bugs through their lifecycle, including clear reproduction steps, logs, traces, screenshots, retesting, regression testing, and closure verification.
• Validate system functionality, subsystem integration, performance under load, stability, and recovery behavior.
• Support interoperability and compliance activities by sharing validation reports, known-issues lists, test results, and follow-up findings.
• Collaborate with cross-functional engineering teams to clarify requirements, investigate complex technical challenges, and improve validation processes.
• Build dashboards, parse logs, analyze coverage and pass/fail data, and identify opportunities to make validation more efficient.
• Own a defined internship project with mentor support, provide progress updates, meet milestones, and present the project’s results and recommendations at the end of the internship.

What you bring

• Currently enrolled in a bachelor’s, master’s, or Ph.D. program in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, or a related field.
• Coursework, research, or project experience in systems, embedded software, digital hardware, computer architecture, networking, test engineering, or hardware/software integration.
• Programming or scripting experience with Python, C, C++, Bash/Shell, or comparable languages.
• Familiarity with Linux development environments, Git version control, command-line tools, issue-tracking platforms, data analysis, and technical documentation.
• Ability to follow structured test procedures, troubleshoot from telemetry or logs, reproduce issues, and communicate findings clearly.
• Foundational understanding of computer architecture and platform components, including CPUs, GPUs, memory, storage, and PCIe devices.
• Strong ownership, curiosity, practical judgment, attention to detail, and willingness to collaborate across engineering functions.
• Ability to ask for help when blocked, follow up, escalate appropriately, and work around obstacles while maintaining quality.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with system bring-up, hardware or firmware validation, lab testing, test automation, or device-under-test debugging.
• Familiarity with PCIe, CXL, Ethernet, I2C, I3C, or other industry protocols.
• Hands-on experience with oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers, traffic generators, power supplies, thermal-forcing systems, or other lab equipment.
• Familiarity with firmware updates, boot flows, configuration and telemetry utilities, error injection, performance counters, or recovery testing.
• Experience with interoperability, compliance, stress, reliability, or regression-testing frameworks.
• Experience building dashboards, parsing logs, analyzing pass/fail trends, or automating validation reporting.

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.

Internship experience and compensation

This is a paid, hourly U.S. internship. The applicable hourly rate is determined as part of the offer process and specified in the offer letter, depending on education level ranges from $35/hour to $55/hour. U.S. interns currently receive a $500-per-week housing/relocation stipend for the duration of the internship. Interns participate in Early Career programming, including technical and professional-development sessions, community events, and an end-of-program project presentation.