Senior Principal Electrical Engineer - Santa Clara, CA, United States
Originally posted 11 May 2026 by the employer.
About the role
The Senior Principal Electrical Engineer owns the architecture, design, validation, and production deployment of optical transceiver hardware, evaluation boards, reference platforms, and test instrumentation. The role focuses on RF/microwave and high-speed mixed-signal PCBAs for 100G/lane through 400G/lane interconnects supporting 800G, 1.6T, and 3.2T architectures.
What you'll do
- Lead complete RF/microwave and high-speed mixed-signal hardware architecture for optical transceivers, evaluation boards, reference platforms, and production test hardware. - Design high-speed schematics and PCBAs for 100G/lane, 200G/lane, and 400G/lane interconnects, balancing signal integrity, power integrity, EMI/EMC, thermal performance, and manufacturability. - Define PCB stackups, low-loss materials, copper weights, via structures, backdrill strategies, impedance targets, loss budgets, and fabrication rules. - Architect high-performance instrumentation used for validation, characterization, calibration, automation, and manufacturing test of fiber optic transceiver modules. - Define digital control interfaces and hardware/firmware interaction requirements for CPLDs, FPGAs, microcontrollers, DSPs, drivers, TIAs, and power controllers. - Perform hands-on lab measurements and debug using oscilloscopes, VNAs, spectrum analyzers, BERTs, optical spectrum analyzers, and automated test systems.
What you'll need
- Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related technical discipline. - 15+ years of direct experience designing RF/microwave, high-speed mixed-signal, analog, digital, and precision measurement hardware. - 15+ years of hands-on schematic capture, PCB layout guidance, bring-up, debug, and verification experience for complex high-speed PCBAs. - 15+ years of experience designing or architecting test equipment, validation hardware, manufacturing test boards, or instrumentation for high-performance electronics or optical communications. - Deep knowledge of high-speed PCB design for very-low-loss channels, including PAM4/NRZ concepts, SerDes channel design, S-parameters, TDR/TDT, impedance control, crosstalk, and return current management. - Proven experience with optical module form factors including OSFP and QSFP-DD, alongside familiarity with CPO, XPO, NPO, and 3.2T-class architectures.
Nice to have
- Advanced degree beyond a Master's degree in a relevant technical field. - Experience with simulation and analysis tools such as CST, HFSS, ADS, HyperLynx, Sigrity, Keysight PathWave, MATLAB, or Python. - Familiarity with test automation and data analysis using Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW, C#, C/C++, SCPI, or VISA.
Skills: RF/microwave, high-speed PCBA, optical transceivers, signal integrity, power integrity
This role has been open 165 days — well above the 109-day median for Hardware Systems Engineering roles.
Hardware Systems Engineering · Serdes Highspeed
|
Open roles in category
93
|
Median days open
109 d
|
Median salary
$200k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Coherent Corp | All employers we track in this specialty (93 roles · 35 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 1 | 93 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 34 | 6277 · 144 employers |
| Median days open | 165 d | 109 d (+56 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $200k |
Skills observed across this category: RF/microwave, high-speed PCBA, optical transceivers, signal integrity, power integrity
Who's hiring in this category
- NVIDIA · 15 open roles · median 38 d
- Qualcomm · 9 open roles · median 198 d
- AMD · 5 open roles · median 130 d
- Astera Labs · 4 open roles · median 37 d
- Intel Corporation · 4 open roles · median 13 d
- Keysight Technologies · 4 open roles · median 151 d
How we counted: 93 open Hardware Systems Engineering (Serdes Highspeed) roles from 35 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 24 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.