Firmware Engineer Intern (DevSecOps)

About the role

Astera Labs is seeking a Firmware Engineer Intern to help strengthen the security, quality, and efficiency of firmware development and delivery. In this role, you will work at the intersection of embedded software, automation, continuous integration and delivery, firmware verification, and secure release practices.

You will help engineering teams build reliable automation that moves firmware changes from pull request through build, security analysis, testing, artifact publication, and release. This internship offers hands-on experience improving developer workflows and embedding security and quality checks throughout the firmware lifecycle.

What you will do

• Develop and improve Jenkins CI/CD pipelines for firmware build, test, deployment, result publication, and cleanup stages.
• Automate firmware builds, packaging, upgrades, regression testing, and artifact archival across development and release workflows.
• Write and maintain Python-based verification utilities and pytest tests for firmware and software-hardware integration.
• Integrate and support quality and security checks such as linting, static analysis, Coverity scans, and pull-request validation.
• Help triage pipeline failures, test failures, security findings, and build or release issues; document root causes and corrective actions.
• Improve test infrastructure that manages firmware images, configuration files, test stations, reboots, logs, and reproducible test environments.
• Support secure firmware release workflows, including approval gates, signed build artifacts, versioning, traceability, and audit-ready records.
• Contribute to shared pipeline libraries, scripts, and developer tools that reduce repetitive work and improve consistency across projects.
• Collaborate with firmware, software, infrastructure, security, and validation engineers to define practical automation and security requirements.
• Document pipeline behavior, onboarding steps, security controls, test coverage, and operational procedures; present the results of your internship project.

What you bring

• Enrollment in a bachelor's, master's, or Ph.D. program in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, cybersecurity, or a related field.
• Coursework, research, or project experience in software development, embedded systems, automation, operating systems, or software security.
• Programming or scripting experience in Python and at least one systems-oriented language such as C, C++, or comparable.
• Familiarity with Linux development environments, Git, pull requests, command-line tools, and troubleshooting.
• Interest in CI/CD, automated testing, secure software development, and improving engineering processes.
• Ability to investigate failures methodically, communicate clearly, and produce well-documented, maintainable solutions.
• Strong ownership, curiosity, practical judgment, and willingness to collaborate across engineering functions.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with Jenkins, pipeline-as-code, Groovy, shared CI/CD libraries, or comparable automation platforms.
• Experience with pytest, test fixtures, virtual environments, test markers, or automated test reporting.
• Exposure to static analysis, code-quality tooling, linting, vulnerability scanning, or software composition analysis.
• Familiarity with secure coding practices, threat modeling, cryptographic concepts, code signing, or software supply-chain security.
• Experience working with firmware images, cross-compilation, release packages, test hardware, logs, or hardware-in-the-loop validation.
• Familiarity with cloud-based build infrastructure, artifact repositories, observability, or audit logging.

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.