System Validation Engineer Intern

Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (Onsite)
Duration: 8 months
Employment type: Internship / co-op

About the role

At Astera Labs, we design connectivity solutions that power cloud service providers, server manufacturers, and networking OEMs. We are seeking a System Validation Engineer Intern to validate hardware, firmware, and applications together as an integrated system.

You will collaborate closely with cross-functional engineering teams to investigate complex technical challenges, improve validation coverage, and accelerate product deployment. During this 8-month internship, you will own a scoped validation project with guidance from experienced engineers.

This is a high-impact, hands-on role at the intersection of software and hardware, where curiosity, creativity, and technical depth come together to help define the next generation of data-center connectivity networks.

What you’ll do

• Deliver repeatable test workflows and define test specifications for system-level validation.

• Automate feature validation and conduct issue investigations using structured test procedures, logs, telemetry, and technical analysis.

• Generate comprehensive validation reports and support lab setup activities.

• Execute functional, performance, stress, reliability, interoperability, regression, and end-to-end validation scenarios.

• Investigate issues across hardware, firmware, software, and applications by reproducing failures, analyzing logs and telemetry, and documenting clear findings.

• Track bugs through their lifecycle, including reproduction steps, logs, traces, screenshots, retesting, regression testing, and closure verification.

• Validate system functionality, subsystem integration, performance under load, stability, and recovery behavior.

• Build dashboards, parse logs, analyze coverage and pass/fail trends, and identify opportunities to make validation more efficient.

• Collaborate with cross-functional engineering teams to clarify requirements, investigate complex technical challenges, and improve validation processes.

• Support interoperability and compliance activities by sharing validation reports, known-issues lists, test results, and follow-up findings.

• Own a scoped validation project, provide progress updates, meet milestones, and present project results and recommendations at the end of the internship.

Basic qualifications

• 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 systems, embedded software, digital hardware, computer architecture, networking, test engineering, or hardware/software integration.

• Programming or scripting experience with Python, C, C++, Bash/Shell, or comparable languages.

• Familiarity with Linux development environments, Git version control, command-line tools, issue-tracking platforms, data analysis, and technical documentation.

• Ability to follow structured test procedures, troubleshoot from telemetry or logs, reproduce issues, and communicate findings clearly.

• Strong ownership, curiosity, practical judgment, and willingness to collaborate across engineering functions.

• Foundational understanding of computer architecture and platform components, including CPUs, GPUs, memory, storage, and PCIe devices.

Preferred experience

• Experience with system bring-up, hardware or firmware validation, lab testing, test automation, or device-under-test debugging.

• Familiarity with industry protocols such as PCIe, CXL, Ethernet, I2C, and I3C.

• Hands-on experience using laboratory equipment such as oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers, traffic generators, power supplies, or thermal-forcing systems.

• Familiarity with firmware updates, boot flows, configuration and telemetry utilities, error injection, performance counters, or recovery testing.

• Experience with interoperability, compliance, stress, reliability, or regression-testing frameworks.

• Experience building dashboards, parsing logs, analyzing pass/fail trends, or automating validation reporting.

Equal opportunity

Astera Labs is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. We encourage anyone with relevant experience to apply.

Compensation and benefits

Compensation and benefits for this Vancouver, Canada internship/co-op will be determined under applicable Canadian programs and specified in the offer letter.