Principal Engineer, Hardware Application Engineering - Board & System Design

As Senior Principal Engineer for Board & System Hardware Design, you will serve as the senior technical authority guiding customer hardware design-in on proprietary Ethernet Switch and UALink platforms. You will act as the crucial technical bridge between internal silicon teams, hardware engineering, and field operations. This is a deep individual contributor role with a strong system-design and productization focus. Your primary mission is to ensure that customers’ next-generation switches, AI fabric platforms, and networking systems are designed right the first time-performant, manufacturable, reliable, and ready for high-volume production. Key ResponsibilitiesTechnical Leadership & Customer EnablementSystem Architecture & Hardware Design Guidance

• Drive PCB stack-up strategy and material selection (low-loss laminates, copper roughness, glass weave, via construction) to meet high-speed performance and cost targets.
• Guide customers on power delivery architecture, including PDN design, multi-rail sequencing, decoupling strategy, and tolerance analysis for high-current ASICs.
• Advise on thermal design, mechanical integration, and cooling strategies (air, liquid, immersion) to meet performance and reliability targets in real deployments.
• Provide guidance on signal and power integrity (SI/PI), reviewing customer simulations and contributing simulations directly when required.
• Drive Design for Reliability, Manufacturability, and Testability (DFx)-ensuring smooth transitions to production at ODM/CM partners.

Next-Gen Tech & Cross-Functional Influence

• Provide technical leadership on 112G and 224G PAM4 SerDes designs today, and help shape the hardware approach for next-generation 448G systems and open AI fabric standards.
• Lead hardware bring-up support, root-cause debug, and issue resolution during customer lab phases and early production.
• Act as a vital field-feedback channel to internal silicon and hardware teams-influencing silicon I/O, package, power, and reference design choices based on real-world customer deployment learnings., * Serve as the primary senior technical advisor to customer hardware teams designing platforms around company Ethernet switches and UALink silicon from early architecture through production ramp.
• Lead design-in reviews of customer schematics, PCB stack-ups, and overall system architectures, identifying risks early and guiding customers to best-in-class implementations.
• Define, develop, and support reference designs for new silicon-partnering with silicon, packaging, and internal hardware engineering teams from early product definition through customer release.
• Own architecture, schematic, layout guidance, and bring-up of company reference and evaluation platforms, applying full lifecycle hands-on expertise.
• Develop and deliver high-impact technical training to customers and internal teams covering proprietary silicon, reference designs, high-speed design best practices, and productization methodologies.

• Education: Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• Overall Experience: 15+ years in hardware design, development, and validation of high-speed networking or compute systems.
• SerDes Expertise: 7+ years of dedicated experience in board and system design for high-speed platforms involving modern SerDes (25G NRZ through 112G/224G PAM4).
• Board Lifecycle: Proven full-lifecycle ownership of complex high-speed boards (architecture, schematic, layout guidance, bring-up).

• Reference Designs: Demonstrated experience defining and delivering reference designs that enabled customer or internal platform adoption.

• Technical Depth:
• Strong expertise in high-layer-count PCB stack-up design and material selection.
• Deep experience with power architecture for high-current ASICs (PDN design, sequencing, decoupling, tolerance analysis).
• Solid background in thermal design and mechanical integration for high-power network/AI systems.
• Working knowledge of SI/PI principles (ability to review and run targeted simulations).
• Hands-on lab experience with hardware bring-up, debugging, and root-cause analysis using industry-standard equipment.

• Deep understanding of high-speed interfaces: Ethernet, PCIe, DDR, advanced SerDes, and modern power delivery. *

• Soft Skills & Leadership:
• Proven customer-facing experience supporting complex technical engagements.
• Ability to develop and deliver technical training to engineering audiences.
• Exceptional communication skills with a track record of influencing senior customer engineering teams across geographies.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience with Ethernet switch platforms (any tier) and/or emerging open AI fabric standards.
• Experience designing or reviewing hardware platforms targeting megascale data center deployments.
• Background in reference platform design and customer enablement for silicon-based solutions.
• Familiarity with ODM/CM manufacturing flows, including DFM/DFT, qualification, and reliability testing.
• Experience with advanced cooling approaches (liquid, immersion) for high-power AI/networking platforms.
• Fluency with EDA tools in either Cadence (Allegro/Sigrity) or Mentor/Siemens (Xpedition/HyperLynx) ecosystems (tool-agnostic experts are welcome).
• Track record of influencing silicon and platform roadmaps based on field insights.

Leadership, Impact & Work Environment

• Leadership & Mentorship: Set the technical bar for board and system design quality across the most strategic customer engagements; mentor engineers and raise collective team expertise.
• Travel: Project-driven travel to customer sites, ODMs, and labs as needed (not continuous)., ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit), ASIC Design, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Best Practices, Broadband, Cadence Allegro, Cloud Computing, Communication Skills, Computer Engineering, Computer Systems, Construction, Cross-Functional, Customer Relations, Customer Training, DFT (Design for Test), Debugging Skills, Ecosystems, Electrical Engineering, Ethernet, Ethernet Switching, Field Trials, Hardware Design, Hardware Development, Industry Standards, Input/Output, Laboratory, Leadership, Manufacturing, Mechanical Design, Mentoring, Network Design, Network Operations Center, Network Systems, Original Design Manufacturer (ODM), PCI Express (PCI-E), People Management, Printed Circuit Board (PCB), Printed Circuit Board Design, Problem Solving Skills, Production Volume, Reliability Testing, Risk Analysis, Root Cause Analysis, SERDES, Schematics, Signal Integrity, Software Engineering, Strategic Analysis, Switched Fabric, System Architecture, System Integration (SI), Systems Engineering, Systems Hardware, Technical Leadership, Technical Support, Technical Training, Testability, Tolerance Analysis, Willing to Travel

Our Customer Solutions Group is the frontline technical partner to the world’s most demanding infrastructure customers-megascale data centers, cloud providers, and AI system builders. We turn cutting-edge silicon into deployable platforms by working shoulder-to-shoulder with customer engineering teams from early architecture through production ramp., Fox Point Recruitment