Emulation Engineering Intern

About the role

Astera Labs is seeking an Emulation Engineering Intern to help enable fast, repeatable pre-silicon validation of complex ASIC and system designs. You will work at the intersection of RTL, design verification, firmware, system modeling, and infrastructure to build and operate emulation environments that make hardware and software testing more productive before silicon is available.

You will gain hands-on experience with emulator setup, model compilation, test execution, regression infrastructure, waveform and software debug, and emulator performance. Your work will support a scoped project that improves test coverage, reproducibility, debug turnaround, model performance, or resource utilization.

What you will do

• Set up and operate emulation environments, including model selection, workspace configuration, resource allocation, run directories, and cleanup.
• Compile and package RTL, firmware, C/C++, transactor, and test components for emulation workflows.
• Create, modify, and run sanity, firmware, traffic, stress, and system-level tests using Python, C/C++, command-line tools, or configuration knobs.
• Build reproducible regression tests using controlled seeds, configuration files, scoreboards, error detection, and end-of-test checks.
• Execute emulation models on platforms such as Synopsys ZeBu or comparable systems, and help support alternate environments such as Palladium or QEMU where applicable.
• Debug failures using logs, timestamps, waveforms, performance reports, model output, and targeted reruns.
• Support software and firmware debug over emulation using tools such as OpenOCD and GDB to inspect registers, set breakpoints, and investigate system behavior.
• Improve testbench features, transactor interfaces, monitors, traffic generation, scoreboards, and debug instrumentation.
• Analyze compile and runtime performance, emulator capacity, job utilization, and resource requirements; help identify opportunities for parallelism or optimization.
• Collaborate with design verification, RTL design, firmware, systems, and infrastructure engineers to clarify requirements and resolve issues.
• Maintain clear documentation for setup, execution, test intent, debug procedures, results, and known limitations; present the completed project and recommendations.

What you bring

• Enrollment 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 digital design, computer architecture, embedded systems, verification, software development, or hardware/software integration.
• Programming or scripting experience in Python, C, C++, SystemVerilog, or a comparable language.
• Familiarity with Linux development environments, Git, command-line tools, debugging, and technical documentation.
• Understanding of digital logic, RTL, simulation, testbenches, interfaces, or operating-system concepts.
• Ability to investigate failures systematically, reproduce issues, analyze data, and communicate findings clearly.
• Strong ownership, curiosity, practical judgment, and willingness to collaborate across engineering functions.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with hardware emulation, FPGA prototyping, simulation, verification, regression testing, or testbench development.
• Familiarity with ZeBu, Palladium, QEMU, Verdi, waveform databases, OpenOCD, GDB, or comparable tools.
• Experience writing C/C++ test programs, Python automation, SystemVerilog testbench components, DPI/transactor code, or scoreboards.
• Familiarity with randomized testing, traffic generation, seeds, configuration knobs, performance monitoring, or failure reproduction.
• Exposure to firmware bring-up, virtual host environments, PCIe/CXL or other high-speed interfaces, or system-level validation.
• Experience analyzing compile/runtime bottlenecks, emulator capacity, job scheduling, or parallel test execution.

Pay and benefits

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.