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San Jose, California, United States
Onsite
About Altera
At Altera™, our independence as the world’s largest pure‑play FPGA solutions provider gives us the focus, speed, and agility to innovate without compromise. With more than four decades of industry‑leading FPGA expertise, our singular mission is to deliver the programmable technologies that help customers differentiate, innovate, and scale across rapidly evolving markets like AI, cloud, networking, and edge. As an independent company, we move faster, invest deeper, and partner more closely—empowering our teams to drive breakthrough innovation and shape the future of the FPGA industry.
About the Role
Altera is seeking an Electrical Validation Engineer to join our Hardware Engineering organization and contribute to the electrical validation of advanced FPGA products and IO interfaces. In this role, you will help define and execute validation strategies to evaluate analog performance, electrical signal integrity, industry-standard interface compliance, and system-level operating margins.
You will work closely with cross-functional teams including circuit design, architecture, pre-silicon validation, product engineering, and test engineering to validate IO and mixed-signal architectures and ensure products meet performance, quality, and production requirements. This is an excellent opportunity for an early-career engineer to gain hands-on experience with electrical validation, laboratory measurement, data analysis, hardware debug, and silicon characterization.
The ideal candidate has a strong foundation in electrical engineering fundamentals, experience with electrical validation or laboratory testing, and an interest in debugging complex hardware and understanding the interaction between electrical design features and system-level performance.
Responsibilities
Support the definition and execution of electrical validation strategies for IO interfaces to evaluate analog performance, signal integrity, standards compliance, and system-level operating margins.
Develop and execute validation plans, test procedures, experiments, and analysis methods to characterize electrical performance and support production target prediction.
Perform hands-on laboratory validation and characterization of IO and mixed-signal architectures across a variety of operating conditions.
Evaluate electrical performance against industry-standard specifications, product requirements, and internal design targets.
Develop and maintain validation infrastructure, test environments, measurement setups, and methodologies used to characterize silicon and system-level electrical performance.
Analyze validation data to identify performance trends, operating margins, anomalies, and potential issues impacting product quality or production readiness.
Perform electrical debug and triage to identify root causes of functional and performance-related failures and work with cross-functional teams to drive issues to resolution.
Investigate interactions between various electrical design features using validation infrastructure and system-level testing.
Analyze internal and external customer returns, electrical failures, and test escapes to identify root causes and support improvements in product quality and yield.
Collaborate with circuit design, architecture, pre-silicon validation, product engineering, and test teams to ensure IO architectures are designed with appropriate validation and test capabilities.
Apply an understanding of Design for Test (DFT) and Design for Manufacturing (DFM) principles to support silicon validation and production test strategies.
Assist in evaluating validation components, equipment, instruments, and test methodologies based on specifications, performance, accuracy, and reliability.
Prepare validation specifications, test documentation, data analysis, and technical reports communicating results and recommendations to cross-functional stakeholders.
Support evaluation and validation of IP and IO implementations to ensure compliance with product requirements and applicable industry standards.
Contribute to multidisciplinary research, development, testing, and validation of IO and mixed-signal architectures supporting datacom, custom processor interfaces, and RF-related applications.
Identify opportunities to improve validation methodologies, test coverage, debug efficiency, and overall product quality.
Work in a collaborative engineering environment and communicate technical findings, issues, and recommendations to engineering teams and project stakeholders.
Salary Range
The pay range below is for Bay Area California only. Actual salary may vary based on a number of factors including job location, job-related knowledge, skills, experiences, trainings, etc. We also offer incentive opportunities that reward employees based on individual and company performance.
$86,900 - $125,000 USD
We use artificial intelligence to screen, assess, or select applicants for the position. Applicants must be eligible for any required U.S. export authorizations.
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Minimum Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
2+ years of experience in electrical validation, hardware validation, silicon validation, electrical characterization, or a related engineering field.
2+ years of experience developing and executing hardware or electrical test plans, procedures, experiments, or validation activities.
2+ years of experience using electrical laboratory equipment and analyzing test data, including experience with tools such as oscilloscopes, multimeters, signal generators, spectrum analyzers, or similar instrumentation.
2+ years of experience troubleshooting and debugging electrical or hardware issues, including identifying root causes, analyzing failures, and communicating technical findings.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience validating high-speed IO interfaces, mixed-signal circuits, or datacom interfaces.
Familiarity with electrical signal integrity concepts including eye diagrams, jitter, noise, crosstalk, and voltage/current margins.
Experience with silicon bring-up, post-silicon validation, electrical characterization, or production validation.
Familiarity with industry-standard high-speed interfaces and protocols.
Experience developing or using automated test environments for electrical characterization.
Knowledge of Design for Test (DFT) and Design for Manufacturing (DFM) concepts.
Experience with scripting or programming languages such as Python, MATLAB, Perl, or similar for test automation and data analysis.
Familiarity with schematic capture, PCB design, simulation tools, or electrical design environments.
Experience debugging electrical issues across silicon, boards, systems, and test infrastructure.
Exposure to semiconductor product development, FPGA architectures, ASICs, or related technologies.
Strong understanding of analog and digital circuit fundamentals, signal integrity, and electrical characterization.
Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to clearly communicate technical findings and recommendations.
Demonstrated ability to work effectively in a cross-functional engineering environment and learn new technologies and methodologies