Platform Solutions Engineer Intern (CE)

About the role

Location: Cary, North Carolina, United States

About the role

Astera Labs is seeking a Platform Solutions Engineer Intern to help translate customer, partner, and system requirements into practical computer-engineering platform solutions. You will work at the intersection of computer architecture, platform software, firmware, diagnostics, system validation, product applications, and ecosystem integration.

You will gain hands-on experience understanding server and rack-scale architectures, integrating hardware and software, evaluating connectivity and management workflows, supporting platform demonstrations, and communicating technical recommendations. You will own a scoped project that produces a reusable analysis, diagnostic workflow, automation improvement, integration artifact, or technical presentation.

What you will do

• Study server, AI infrastructure, and rack-scale architectures, including CPU, GPU, memory, storage, networking, accelerators, and the connectivity paths between them.
• Translate customer, partner, product, and system requirements into platform assumptions, architecture diagrams, interface requirements, configuration options, and technical questions.
• Analyze how hardware, firmware, SDKs, command-line tools, management interfaces, and platform integrations work together to deliver a usable system solution.
• Support device discovery, initialization, configuration, firmware updates, link management, telemetry collection, error reporting, event logging, and diagnostic workflows.
• Work with connectivity technologies such as PCIe, CXL, Ethernet, and related high-speed interconnects; help analyze link state, health, performance, and recovery behavior.
• Support platform reference designs, application block diagrams, evaluation kits, proof-of-concept builds, interoperability activities, and technical readiness reviews.
• Develop or improve Python, C/C++, shell, SDK, CLI, spreadsheet, or other automation for configuration checks, test execution, data collection, log parsing, result reporting, or technical analysis.
• Collect and analyze firmware logs, telemetry, performance counters, error events, link traces, protocol data, and system behavior to support root-cause investigations.
• Help reproduce system issues, document expected and observed behavior, track action items, and coordinate technical follow-up across engineering teams and ecosystem partners.
• Prepare concise technical summaries, comparison tables, presentations, diagrams, FAQs, integration guides, and other materials that make complex platform behavior easier to understand.
• Maintain structured trackers for supported configurations, validation status, software and firmware versions, open issues, and upcoming milestones.
• Collaborate with Product & Platform, Hardware Engineering, Firmware, Platform Software, System Validation, Sales Engineering, Marketing, Business Development, and ecosystem partners to turn technical findings into actionable recommendations.
• Document the completed project, analysis, methodology, results, and recommendations; present the outcome to engineering and cross-functional 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 computer architecture, operating systems, embedded software, networking, digital hardware, systems, or hardware/software integration.
• Foundational understanding of processors, memory, I/O, operating systems, firmware, device drivers, or high-speed interfaces.
• Programming, scripting, data analysis, or automation experience with Python, C, C++, shell, spreadsheets, or a comparable toolset.
• Familiarity with Linux development environments, Git, command-line tools, APIs, debugging, and technical documentation.
• Ability to learn complex technical systems, organize ambiguous requirements, analyze tradeoffs, and communicate practical recommendations.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical concepts to engineering, product, and business audiences.
• Strong ownership, curiosity, practical judgment, and willingness to collaborate across functions.

Preferred qualifications

• Familiarity with PCIe, CXL, Ethernet, SerDes, UALink, NVLink, or other high-speed connectivity technologies and standards.
• Experience with firmware, SDKs, CLIs, device diagnostics, hardware bring-up, lab validation, interoperability testing, or platform debug.
• Familiarity with telemetry, link monitoring, error injection, performance counters, event logs, RAS, secure boot, firmware updates, or recovery workflows.
• Exposure to OpenBMC, Redfish, PLDM, gNMI, cloud-native APIs, Kubernetes, or other platform-management and integration technologies.
• Experience building dashboards, comparison frameworks, configuration trackers, data analyses, or technical presentations.
• Familiarity with CPU, GPU, memory, storage, networking, rack-scale, or AI infrastructure architectures and their system-level performance considerations.

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.