Principal Hardware Engineer - Santa Clara, CA - Hybrid

At Gigamon, our purpose is to protect the hybrid networks and data of the largest, most complex organizations on the planet. Certified as a Great Place to Work, we offer a deep observability pipeline that efficiently delivers network-derived intelligence to cloud, security, and observability tools. This helps our customers to eliminate security blind spots, optimize network traffic, and dramatically reduce tool cost and complexity, enabling them to better secure and manage their hybrid cloud infrastructure. Gigamon has served more than 4,000 customers worldwide, including over 80 percent of Fortune 100 enterprises, 9 of the 10 largest mobile network providers, and hundreds of governments and educational organizations.

The Principal Hardware Engineer will join a small, dynamic Hardware Engineering team responsible for developing innovative networking products. This role will lead system and board-level architecture, digital and analog circuit design, signal integrity, and product development from concept through production. The engineer will collaborate with transceiver vendors, contract manufacturers, customers, and cross-functional teams to deliver reliable, high-performance, and manufacturable products. This position will have a direct impact on product performance, successful system deployment, and Gigamon’s ability to deliver differentiated network observability solutions.

What you’ll do:

• Define system and board-level architectures and high-level concepts for new networking products.
• Design and develop board-level circuits across digital and analog technologies, including high-speed interfaces, clocking, power distribution, and system interconnects.
• Apply strong electrical and signal integrity fundamentals to guide design decisions and resolve high-speed system-level challenges.
• Establish and maintain signal integrity rules, design constraints, and compliance requirements.
• Apply optical communications knowledge when specifying new transceiver SKUs and collaborating with transceiver vendors.
• Lead conceptual design, component selection, design simulation, detailed design, schematic capture, and PCB design-rule development.
• Design high-speed buses and perform signal integrity analysis to support product performance and compliance requirements.
• Design low-noise, high-efficiency on-board power regulation circuits.
• Apply Ethernet standards, including IEEE 802.3, to networking product development.
• Support PCB layout, board- and system-level bring-up, debugging, verification, and validation.
• Develop and execute hardware validation plans covering functional, performance, interoperability, environmental, and reliability requirements.
• Use appropriate laboratory equipment, including oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, protocol analyzers, network test equipment, and other diagnostic instruments, to investigate and resolve hardware issues.
• Design, develop, modify, and support new and existing products throughout their lifecycle.
• Manage prototype builds with contract manufacturers and support design transfer, production introduction, and manufacturing readiness activities.
• Support boards and systems through environmental testing, qualification, and release to production.
• Investigate development, production, and field-reported failures; reproduce issues where possible; identify root causes; and implement corrective actions.
• Collaborate with firmware, software, mechanical, systems, validation, manufacturing, supply-chain, vendors, contract manufacturers, and customers to resolve technical issues and deliver product milestones.
• Drive design reviews, technical tradeoff analyses, engineering documentation, test plans, test procedures, and engineering change processes.
• Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership across hardware development projects.

What you’ve done:

• Earned a bachelor’s or master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or an equivalent technical field.
• Gained 10–15 years of experience designing networking products, communications hardware, server platforms, high-performance computing systems, or equivalent hardware.
• Demonstrated expertise in system and hardware architecture, schematic capture, component selection, PCB design, and system-level design.
• Demonstrated a solid understanding of electrical fundamentals and signal integrity principles as applied to high-speed digital hardware.
• Designed and debugged digital and analog hardware incorporating high-speed buses, processors, memory, networking devices, transceivers, and related subsystems.
• Applied Ethernet standards, including IEEE 802.3, to networking product development.
• Designed or supported low-noise, high-efficiency on-board power regulation circuits.
• Applied optical communications concepts when evaluating or specifying optical transceivers.
• Led board bring-up, hardware debugging, verification, validation, failure analysis, and root-cause investigations.
• Used laboratory tools such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, protocol analyzers, network test equipment, and other diagnostic instruments.
• Delivered products through the complete development lifecycle, including architecture, design, simulation, prototype build, verification, qualification, production introduction, and release to manufacturing.
• Managed prototype builds and collaborated effectively with contract manufacturers and external vendors.
• Written product specifications, test plans, test procedures, design documentation, and technical reports.
• Used OrCAD schematic capture tools; experience with related PCB design and analysis tools is preferred.

Who you are:

• A collaborative team player who works effectively with engineering, manufacturing, supply-chain, vendors, contract manufacturers, customers, and other cross-functional partners.
• A self-starter who takes ownership, learns new skills quickly, and drives work to completion.
• A hands‑on engineer who is comfortable working in a fast‑paced, dynamic environment.
• A systems thinker who translates product requirements into robust, high-performance, reliable, and manufacturable hardware architectures.
• A methodical problem solver who recognizes issues, gathers relevant data, investigates root causes, and draws sound technical conclusions.
• An organized professional who prioritizes responsibilities, manages multiple workstreams, and consistently meets deadlines.
• A clear communicator who explains complex technical concepts and design tradeoffs to managers, peers, vendors, and customers.
• A pragmatic decision-maker who balances performance, reliability, schedule, cost, compliance, and manufacturability.
• A technical leader and mentor who raises engineering quality and helps others develop their capabilities.

The base salary compensation range targeted for this role is expected to be between $208,000 - $260,000 (subject to terms and conditions of the plan). This salary range is an estimate, and the actual salary may vary based on the Company’s compensation practices.

Employees in this position are eligible to participate in the Company’s standard employee benefit programs, which may include health and other insurances such as life and disability, and savings accounts such as a retirement plan with company matching contributions or similar, paid time off (holidays, vacation, and sick), tuition reimbursement, employee assistance program (EAP), business travel accident insurance, employee discounts, and employee referral program. Additionally, employees may be eligible to participate in the Profit Interest Units plan.

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