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Director Hardware Engineering Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Albedo

Director of Hardware Engineering

Broomfield, CO

$250K - $275K/yr

Albedo is hiring a Director of Hardware Engineering to lead our hardware org across opto-mechanical, structural, thermal, and avionics disciplines. You'll own the design margin discipline for ...

Teradyne

Hardware Engineering Manager

Reading, MA · On-site

$201 - $321.60/hr

Hardware Engineering Manager - DC/Power Instrumentation (North Reading, MA) Location: North Reading ... Direct experience managing 6 or more staff members. * Strong knowledge of electrical engineering ...

Albedo

Director of Hardware Engineering

Broomfield, CO · On-site

$250K - $275K/yr

Albedo is hiring a Director of Hardware Engineering to lead our hardware org across opto-mechanical, structural, thermal, and avionics disciplines. You'll own the design margin discipline for ...

SonicWall

Senior Director, Hardware

$113K - $151K/yr

Design and Development leadership of global HW engineering team * Hands-on engagement with Software & Product leads for hardware architecture definition, including silicon selection & system power ...

SonicWall

Senior Director, Hardware

$158K - $195K/yr

Design and Development leadership of global HW engineering team * Hands-on engagement with Software & Product leads for hardware architecture definition, including silicon selection & system power ...

Hyve Solutions

Sr. Hardware Engineering Manager

Fremont, CA · On-site

$162K - $220K/yr

Where the Hardware Engineering Director sets organizational strategy across the US design organization, this role owns the engineering team and program delivery within it: building the bench, running ...

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Director Hardware Engineering information

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$194.7K

$254K

How much do director hardware engineering jobs pay per year?

As of Sep 7, 2026, the average yearly pay for director hardware engineering in the United States is $194,709.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $141,500.00 and $253,000.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What does a director of hardware engineering do?

A Director of Hardware Engineering leads and oversees teams responsible for designing, developing, and testing hardware components and systems. This role involves setting technical direction, managing budgets and resources, and ensuring that projects meet performance, quality, and timeline goals. Directors also collaborate with other departments such as software engineering, product management, and manufacturing to deliver integrated solutions. Additionally, they play a key role in strategic planning and mentoring engineering talent within the organization.

How does a director of hardware engineering typically collaborate with cross-functional teams during a product development cycle?

A Director of Hardware Engineering plays a pivotal role in coordinating with cross-functional teams such as software engineering, product management, manufacturing, and quality assurance throughout the product development lifecycle. They facilitate regular meetings to align on project goals, address technical challenges, and ensure that hardware designs integrate seamlessly with other system components. Additionally, they often mediate between technical staff and executive leadership to balance innovation, cost, and timelines, while promoting effective communication and problem-solving across departments.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a director of hardware engineering, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Director of Hardware Engineering, you need deep expertise in hardware design, project management, and a relevant engineering degree, often backed by extensive industry experience. Familiarity with CAD tools, hardware simulation software, and certifications in project management (such as PMP) are typically important. Strong leadership, strategic thinking, and effective communication are essential soft skills for guiding teams and aligning engineering efforts with business goals. These skills ensure the successful delivery of innovative hardware solutions, team productivity, and alignment with organizational objectives.
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Director Hardware Engineering jobs near you
Infographic showing various Director Hardware Engineering job openings in the United States as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 92% Full Time, 4% Part Time, 3% Contract, and 1% Nights. Highlights an 85% Physical, 5% Hybrid, and 10% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $194,709 per year, or $93.6 per hour.

Hardware Design Engineering, Senior Director - Signal Connectivity Rack-Scale Platforms

Astera Labs

San Jose, CA • On-site

Full-time

Re-posted 4 days ago

Key responsibilities

  • Lead and scale the hardware design engineering organization across multiple product lines, including electrical/PCB design, mechanical engineering, hardware validation, lab infrastructure, and customer support.

  • Oversee the complete hardware realization of connectivity products from concept through design, validation, and production release, while enabling OEM customers to integrate silicon into their products.

  • Define and manage the hardware technology roadmap, making strategic decisions on interconnect architectures, PCB technologies, connector platforms, thermal solutions, and form factors.

Job description

Astera Labs (NASDAQ: ALAB) provides rack-scale AI infrastructure through purpose-built connectivity solutions. By collaborating with hyperscalers and ecosystem partners, Astera Labs enables organizations to unlock the full potential of modern AI. Astera Labs' Intelligent Connectivity Platform integrates CXL®, Ethernet, NVLink, PCIe®, and UALink™ semiconductor-based technologies with the company's COSMOS software suite to unify diverse components into cohesive, flexible systems that deliver end-to-end scale-up, and scale-out connectivity. The company's custom connectivity solutions business complements its standards-based portfolio, enabling customers to deploy tailored architectures to meet their unique infrastructure requirements. Discover more at www.asteralabs.com.
About Astera Labs
Astera Labs is the connectivity backbone of rack-scale AI infrastructure. Our Active Electrical Cables (AEC), Smart Cable Modules (SCM), Silicon Evaluation Platforms, and rack-scale products deliver purpose-built, high-speed connectivity for the world's most demanding AI clusters. As our product portfolio expands in complexity, performance, and volume - and as OEM customers increasingly adopt Astera Labs silicon into their own designs - we need a senior engineering leader to build and scale the hardware design engineering organization that creates industry-defining products and enables our customers' success.
About the Role
We are hiring a Senior Director, Hardware Design Engineering to lead and scale Astera Labs' hardware design engineering organization across Active Electrical Cables (AEC), Smart Cable Modules (SCM), Silicon Evaluation Platforms (SVB/EVB), rack-scale products, and OEM/customer design enablement. This is a senior leadership role with full ownership of the hardware design function - encompassing electrical/PCB design, mechanical engineering, hardware validation, lab infrastructure, and customer hardware engineering support.
You will build and lead a world-class, multidisciplinary engineering organization that takes products from concept through design, validation, qualification, and production release - while simultaneously enabling OEM customers and design partners to successfully integrate Astera Labs silicon into their own products. Your teams will own the complete hardware realization of Astera Labs' connectivity products and serve as the technical bridge between Astera Labs' silicon capabilities and the broader ecosystem of customers building next-generation AI infrastructure.
You will be a key member of the engineering leadership team, driving technology roadmaps, making critical technical and business trade-off decisions, and partnering closely with silicon, firmware, signal integrity, NPI, manufacturing, quality, product management, sales, and customer-facing teams. You'll also be responsible for attracting, developing, and retaining top engineering talent as Astera Labs scales through hyper-growth.
Key Responsibilities
Engineering Leadership & Organization Building
  • Lead and scale Astera Labs' hardware design engineering organization, encompassing:
    • Electrical/PCB Hardware Design Engineering - schematic capture, high-speed PCB/flex/substrate layout, power delivery, component engineering for cable modules through rack-scale systems
    • Mechanical Engineering - connector design, housing/enclosure design, thermal management, cable strain relief, chassis/sheet metal, form factor compliance, tolerance analysis
    • Hardware Validation Engineering - product-level electrical, mechanical, environmental, and reliability qualification and validation across all product lines
    • Lab Engineering & Infrastructure - test lab buildout, capital equipment strategy, measurement capability, and lab operations
    • Customer Hardware Engineering & OEM Enablement - reference design support, design reviews, integration guidance, and hands-on technical engagement with OEM customers adopting Astera Labs silicon
  • Build, mentor, and lead a team of engineering managers and senior individual contributors across all hardware design disciplines
  • Define organizational structure, hiring plans, career development frameworks, and technical competency models as the team scales
  • Foster a culture of engineering excellence, rigorous design practices, cross-functional collaboration, and customer-centric technical support
  • Represent the hardware design engineering function in executive reviews, board updates, and strategic planning sessions
Technology Roadmap & Strategic Planning
  • Define and manage the hardware technology roadmap for AEC, SCM, Silicon Evaluation Platforms, and rack-scale products - aligned with silicon roadmaps, customer requirements, market trends, and competitive dynamics
  • Drive technology strategy decisions across interconnect architectures, PCB/substrate technologies, connector platforms, cable constructions, thermal solutions, chassis architectures, and form factors
  • Identify and invest in next-generation hardware technologies (e.g., 224G/lane substrates, advanced thermal materials, novel connector interfaces, miniaturized form factors, liquid cooling integration) that maintain Astera Labs' competitive differentiation
  • Partner with Product Management and Business Development to translate customer needs, market requirements, and standards evolution into engineering development priorities
  • Align hardware design roadmap with silicon tape-out schedules, firmware development timelines, manufacturing readiness milestones, and OEM customer design-in timelines
  • Incorporate customer and OEM feedback into technology roadmap decisions - ensuring reference designs, evaluation platforms, and design collateral evolve to meet ecosystem needs
Product Development & Execution
  • Drive R&D and new product development for the full range of hardware products - from cable-scale modules to rack-scale systems:
    • Active Electrical Cables (AEC) - high-speed active cable products with integrated retimer silicon
    • Smart Cable Modules (SCM) - advanced cable modules with intelligent management and diagnostic capabilities
    • Silicon Evaluation Platforms (SVB/EVB) - evaluation boards and system validation platforms that enable silicon bring-up, characterization, and customer evaluation
    • Rack-Scale Products - AI chassis-class systems, switch trays, CEM cards, and associated system-level hardware
    • Reference Designs & Customer Enablement Hardware - reference schematics, layout guidelines, and demonstration platforms that accelerate OEM adoption of Astera Labs silicon
  • Oversee products through the full design lifecycle - from architecture definition, schematic/layout design, mechanical design, prototype build, validation, qualification, to production release
  • Ensure rigorous design review processes at each stage (architecture, schematic, layout, mechanical, pre-production) with clear entry/exit criteria and cross-functional participation
  • Make critical technical trade-off decisions that balance performance, cost, manufacturability, schedule, and risk across the product portfolio
  • Drive schedule discipline and engineering milestone execution - ensuring products hit market windows aligned with customer platform cycles and silicon availability
Electrical & PCB Design
  • Oversee high-speed PCB, flex circuit, and substrate design across the full product portfolio:
    • AEC/SCM: Retimer integration on flex/substrate, high-speed routing, power delivery, dense component placement in constrained cable module form factors
    • Silicon Evaluation Platforms: Complex multi-layer PCBs for silicon bring-up, high-speed channel characterization, and reference design generation
    • Rack-Scale Products: Backplane/midplane design, switch tray PCBs, CEM card layouts, chassis power distribution, and high-density connector interfaces
    • Reference Designs: Production-quality schematics and layouts that serve as starting points for OEM customers integrating Astera Labs silicon
  • Ensure designs meet signal integrity requirements for 112G and 224G PAM4 lanes, including impedance control, loss budgets, crosstalk isolation, and return loss compliance
  • Drive component engineering decisions - selecting connectors, passives, power management ICs, and materials that meet performance, reliability, cost, and availability requirements
  • Establish and enforce design rules, layout guidelines, stackup definitions, and PCB/substrate technology selection criteria across all product lines
  • Partner with Signal Integrity engineering to validate designs through simulation and correlation with measured performance
Mechanical Engineering
  • Direct mechanical engineering across the full product range:
    • AEC/SCM: Connector mating interfaces, housings, latching mechanisms, cable strain relief, overmold design, and thermal solutions for active cable modules
    • Silicon Evaluation Platforms: Board-level mechanical design, heatsink integration, test fixture compatibility, and debug accessibility
    • Rack-Scale Products: Chassis design, sheet metal, airflow/thermal architecture, cable management, hot-swap mechanisms, rack mounting, and system-level mechanical integration
  • Ensure products meet relevant form factor standards (OSFP, QSFP-DD, OCP, Open19, or proprietary) with full compliance to mechanical interface specifications
  • Drive thermal management design across all product lines - from retimer-scale thermal solutions in cable modules to chassis-level airflow and liquid cooling architectures for rack-scale systems
  • Oversee tolerance analysis, FEA/CFD simulation, material selection, and mechanical reliability assessments for all product designs
  • Ensure mechanical designs support manufacturing scalability - DFM, DFA, tooling feasibility, and assembly sequence optimization
Hardware Validation & Qualification
  • Own the hardware validation strategy and execution for all products - including electrical performance validation, mechanical/environmental stress testing, reliability qualification, and standards compliance
  • Define validation plans that provide comprehensive coverage across signal integrity performance, power delivery, thermal behavior, mechanical durability, and environmental resilience
  • Establish qualification programs aligned with customer requirements, industry standards (GR-468, IEC, Telcordia, OCP specifications), and internal reliability targets
  • Drive a data-driven validation culture - ensuring all design decisions are backed by measured data, all failures are root-caused, and all products ship with complete characterization
  • Oversee interoperability testing with customer host platforms, switches, NICs, and system environments
  • For Silicon Evaluation Platforms, ensure validation coverage enables comprehensive silicon characterization and provides customers confidence in Astera Labs' silicon performance
Lab Engineering & Infrastructure
  • Define and execute the strategy for Astera Labs' hardware engineering labs - including high-speed electrical measurement, mechanical testing, environmental/reliability chambers, rack-scale system test environments, and production-representative assembly capabilities
  • Drive capital equipment planning, procurement, and installation for lab infrastructure that supports 112G/224G characterization (high-bandwidth oscilloscopes, BER testers, VNAs, TDR systems) as well as system-level power, thermal, and mechanical testing
  • Ensure lab environments support rapid prototyping, debug, validation, and failure analysis workflows across all product lines - from cable modules to full rack configurations
  • Provide lab resources and environments for customer engagement activities - including joint debug sessions, interoperability testing, and silicon evaluation demonstrations
  • Build and lead a lab engineering team responsible for equipment maintenance, calibration, measurement methodology, and lab operations
OEM Engagement & Customer Design Enablement
  • OEM Collaboration on Customer Designs Using Astera Labs Silicon:
    • Lead hardware engineering engagement with OEM customers who are designing Astera Labs silicon into their own products - including hyperscale cloud providers, server OEMs, switch vendors, and cable/module manufacturers
    • Provide design review support for customer hardware designs incorporating Astera Labs retimers, re-drivers, and connectivity ASICs - reviewing schematics, layouts, power delivery, thermal solutions, and signal integrity
    • Develop and maintain comprehensive reference design packages - including reference schematics, recommended layouts, stackup guidelines, BOM recommendations, thermal design guides, and application notes
    • Create and publish hardware design guides, integration manuals, and best-practice documentation that enable OEM customers to achieve first-pass success with Astera Labs silicon
    • Establish design review frameworks and checklists that OEM customers can use for self-assessment, supplemented by Astera Labs expert review at critical milestones
  • Customer Technical Support:
    • Build and lead a customer hardware engineering support function that provides responsive, expert-level technical assistance to OEM customers during their design and integration cycles
    • Support customer bring-up, debug, and troubleshooting activities - providing hands-on engineering engagement when customers encounter hardware integration challenges with Astera Labs silicon
    • Drive resolution of customer-reported hardware issues - coordinating across internal teams (silicon, firmware, SI, validation) to provide root cause analysis and corrective guidance
    • Establish escalat

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