Platform Software Diagnostics Intern

About the role

Astera Labs * San Jose, CA * Internship * On-site

The opportunity

Join the Platform Software Diagnostics team within Hardware Engineering and work at the boundary of software and hardware. You'll help create practical tools for board and chip bring-up, production testing, validation, and data-driven debugging across Astera Labs' product lines.

This internship is designed for someone who enjoys learning by doing: reading a specification, writing code, connecting to real hardware, running a test, investigating the result, and improving the tool or workflow. You'll work alongside experienced engineers and contribute to projects that turn low-level device behavior into reliable, understandable diagnostics.

What you'll do

• Develop and improve diagnostic utilities in C for board and chip bring-up, including register access, initialization, device discovery, and device-health checks.
• Read schematics, specifications, register descriptions, and test output to understand expected hardware behavior and diagnose issues.
• Write Python utilities and test automation to make validation, data collection, and debugging more repeatable.
• Use Raspberry Pi-based lab systems and development tools to interact with boards, connectivity modules, and other hardware under test.
• Create or maintain tests for production and validation workflows, helping identify failures earlier and improve test coverage.
• Reproduce hardware/software issues, form hypotheses, run focused experiments, analyze evidence, and document findings.
• Collaborate with engineers across diagnostics, validation, production, and related hardware/software teams to communicate results and deliver practical fixes.
• Participate in code reviews, issue tracking, technical discussions, and documentation that make the team's work easier to maintain and scale.
• Present your project, results, and key learnings at the end of the internship.

Depending on project needs and your interests, you may also

• Investigate test results and failure logs, improving parsing, reporting, and data visualization so engineers can understand issues faster.
• Contribute to regression and infrastructure projects, such as unit-test or pytest enablement, Jenkins workflows, time-series test data, or software-release automation.

What you bring

• Hands-on experience with C, Python, or another programming language through coursework, projects, research, or prior experience.
• Curiosity about how software interacts with physical systems and a willingness to learn from schematics, specifications, registers, and test output.
• Comfort working in a Linux development environment and using Git-based workflows.
• A methodical approach to debugging: forming hypotheses, running focused tests, analyzing evidence, and documenting what you learn.
• Clear written and verbal communication, with the ability to collaborate across software and hardware disciplines.
• Ownership, persistence, and a practical mindset in an environment where the first attempt may not work.

Helpful experience

• Embedded software, device drivers, bare-metal development, or low-level debugging.
• I2C, SPI, PCIe, CXL, SerDes, signal-integrity concepts, or other hardware interfaces.
• Raspberry Pi, lab automation, test equipment, or semiconductor/networking hardware.
• Python test automation, pytest, log parsing, data analysis, or dashboard development.
• Jenkins or other continuous-integration and regression systems.

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 form $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.