Hardware Engineer - California, Santa Clara, United States
$122,440 - $232,190 USD yearly
Originally posted 17 September 2026 by the employer.
Join a team supporting the hardware design of an optical transceiver.
About the role
This role involves supporting the hardware design of optical transceivers and evaluation boards to meet product specifications. You will contribute to PCBA design from concept to final product and through evaluation and design verification testing.
What you'll do
- Support hardware design of an optical transceiver and evaluation boards, including schematic capture, circuit simulation, and PCB design guidance.
- Own the schematic and layout execution for 100G/lane and 200G/lane module PCBA, managing PI and SI requirements.
- Contribute to product requirements, owning PCBA design from concept to EVT/DVT phases.
- Maintain documentation for hardware design specifications, BOMs, and coordinate with the NPI team.
- Lead design reviews, presenting design summaries and highlighting risks with mitigation plans.
- Troubleshoot and optimize the performance of sub-system/transceiver module boards.
What you'll need
- Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or similar STEM field with 4+ years of experience, or Master's degree with 3+ years of experience, or PhD with 0 years of experience.
- 3+ years of experience in HW/circuit design, schematic design, and layout floor planning.
- Experience with Cadence tools for schematic and layout.
- Experience in high density and high-speed multiple-layer board design.
- Experience with Voltage regulator, uController, DAC/ADCs component selection, design, and layout optimization.
- Experience with PCB and product bring up, and laboratory optical and electrical measurement skills.
- Experience with high speed Tline design and layout guidelines (25-50G NRZ, 100Gbps PAM4 and above).
Nice to have
- Experience working with high volume PCB/substrate fab houses and selecting PCB stackup.
- Experience with electronics CAD tools and modeling, including PI and SI simulations.
- Knowledge of transceiver/test board electrical design principles, including module architecture, high speed signal integrity, crosstalk, power integrity, noise, soft start, ESD, FW, testing.
- Experience in layout and able to direct layout engineers with clear design priority.
- Understanding of micro-controller and communication protocols such as SPI, I2C, MDIO, CMIS management interface for optical modules.
- Experience working with AWG, DCAM, VNA/LCA to characterize high speed performance.
This role has been open 25 days — well below the 49-day median for Hardware Systems Engineering roles.
Hardware Systems Engineering · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
946
|
Median days open
49 d
|
Median salary
$158k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Intel Corporation | All employers we track in this specialty (946 roles · 102 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 72 | 946 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 195 | 6116 · 146 employers |
| Median days open | 31 d | 49 d (−18 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $158k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Intel Corporation (this employer) · 72 open roles · median 31 d
- KLA Corporation · 62 open roles · median 41 d
- Applied Materials · 49 open roles · median 61 d
- NVIDIA · 49 open roles · median 67 d
- Teradyne · 48 open roles · median 25 d
- AMD · 47 open roles · median 46 d
How we counted: 946 open Hardware Systems Engineering (AI ML Hardware) roles from 102 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 13 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.