Firmware Engineer Intern (SCO2)

About the role

Location: San Jose, California, United States

About the role

Astera Labs is seeking a Firmware Engineer Intern to work on Scorpio2 (SCO2), a high-performance platform that combines multiple firmware images and processor subsystems. You will contribute to product-specific embedded firmware development, build and validation workflows, and software-hardware debug alongside experienced firmware engineers.

This internship is designed around meaningful project ownership. You will learn the SCO2 codebase, build flow, and observability tools while developing practical experience with embedded systems, real-time software, processor-to-processor communication, and product validation.

What you will do

• Learn the SCO2 firmware architecture, source tree, build flow, and product interfaces.
• Develop, debug, and improve embedded firmware running across the SCO2 AMC, SMC, and CMC processor subsystems.
• Work with FreeRTOS tasks, interrupts, processor-local memory, mailboxes, and inter-processor communication under mentorship.
• Build and package SCO2 firmware for emulation and silicon or bench workflows using the established compile-and-pack flow.
• Work with SysConfig templates and firmware image outputs to create and validate configuration variants.
• Add or improve firmware functionality, diagnostics, console commands, logging, or platform support for SCO2.
• Use SDK, mailbox, command-line, and Python-based tools to interact with the device and investigate firmware behavior.
• Support telemetry and debug workflows involving PCIe health, link events, error counters, performance data, and firmware reset events.
• Create tests, reproduce issues, analyze logs and build artifacts, and communicate root causes and proposed fixes.
• Document implementation details, validation results, and lessons learned; present the outcome of your internship project to technical and business stakeholders.

What you bring

• Enrollment in a bachelor's, master's, or Ph.D. program in computer engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, or a related field.
• Coursework, research, or project experience in embedded systems, firmware, operating systems, computer architecture, or software-hardware integration.
• Programming experience in C, C++, Python, or a comparable systems-oriented language.
• Familiarity with Linux development environments, Git-based workflows, debugging, and writing clear technical documentation.
• Ability to understand technical specifications, investigate problems methodically, and communicate findings clearly.
• Strong ownership, curiosity, practical judgment, and willingness to learn in a collaborative engineering environment.

Preferred qualifications

• Exposure to real-time operating systems, including FreeRTOS or a comparable RTOS.
• Familiarity with multi-core or multi-processor systems, inter-process communication, mailboxes, interrupts, UART, I2C, PCIe, or register-level programming.
• Experience building firmware from source, working with compiler toolchains, managing submodules, or generating binary images.
• Experience writing Python utilities, SDK integrations, automated tests, or lab/debug scripts.
• Familiarity with embedded telemetry, logging, performance counters, error handling, or hardware bring-up.

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.