Principal Application Engineer

Principal Application Engineer

We are seeking a Principal Application Engineer to drive customer-facing technical engagement for Credo's Zero-Flap optical module products. This role acts as the technical bridge between Credo and key customers, enabling successful deployment, troubleshooting, and performance optimization of Credo optical modules in complex system environments. The engineers deeply understand customer hardware, firmware, and software use cases, build automation and evaluation infrastructure modeled after real-world customer systems, and lead cross-functional collaboration to deliver high-quality solutions that ensure seamless customer adoption of Zero-Flap optical module products.

Base salary range is $180,000 - $250,000 a year. The base salary offer will depend on factors such as education, experience, training, skills, qualifications, and location. This position is also eligible for a discretionary bonus, equity and a full range of medical and other benefits.

Why Credo

• Purpose: We invest in what matters. From meaningful-future shaping projects to competitive compensation, we empower you to grow your career while making a lasting impact.
• People: Connection starts within. We collaborate, celebrate wins, and create an environment where everyone can do their best work.
• Possibilities: Our belief shapes what's next. Our technology powers the most reliable and energy-efficient connections around the world – and our team powers new products and markets that come next.

As an ideal candidate, you bring strong system-level knowledge, deep optical module expertise, and excellent customer-facing technical abilities. You understand how optical modules behave under different host system architectures and can translate customer issues into structured engineering tasks for internal teams. In your daily work, you will:

• Support customer-site troubleshooting, including electrical, optical, firmware, and interoperability-related issues.
• Learn and analyze customer use cases, including system hardware architecture, firmware behavior, operating conditions, and software drivers where Credo modules are deployed.
• Build automation infrastructure and test environments that accurately represent customer system environments for validation and problem reproduction.
• Develop test scripts and automated evaluation flows to measure module performance under customer-equivalent conditions.
• Collaborate closely with internal optical, mechanical, firmware, hardware, and validation teams to root-cause issues and drive resolution.
• Collect, consolidate, and interpret engineering data across multiple domains (optical parameters, host signals, firmware logs, system telemetry, etc.), and identify areas for further improvement.
• Prepare customer-facing technical reports, including performance summaries, failure analyses, and recommended actions.
• Lead on-site technical engagements with customers, driving alignment on test plans, performance expectations, and deployment conditions.
• Provide insights back into the product development teams to improve module robustness, firmware behavior, and system compatibility.

Basic Qualifications

• B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Communication, Optics or Physics, plus 12+ years of relevant work experience
• Strong understanding of optical pluggable modules and standards (IEEE, CMIS, QSFP-DD, OSFP).
• Hands-on experience with optical, electrical test equipment (e.g., DCA, BERT, scopes, host system) and switches and NICs.
• Deep knowledge of optical modules and how they interact with the customers' hardware and software environments.
• Ability to diagnose issues across firmware, optical, mechanical, and system domains.
• Test automation using scripting languages such as Python.
• Proven ability to drive data-based root-cause investigations and to design experiments upfront that produce clear, defensible engineering conclusions and actionable next steps.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to interface directly with customers and internal engineering teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• MS or PhD. in Electrical Engineering, Communication, Optics or Physics, plus 10+ years of relevant work experience.
• Experience with large-scale data analysis and reporting for customer deliverables.
• Experience building customer-representative testbeds, including host systems, traffic generators, and automation frameworks.
• Strong system-level perspective — ability to correlate module behavior with host design choices.
• Experience supporting top-tier hyperscale and datacenter customers.
• Understanding of customers' optical module qualification and deployment procedures.

Credo's mission is to transform connectivity at scale through fast, reliable, and energy-efficient system solutions. Our high-speed copper and optical interconnect products deliver industry-leading power and performance at up to 1.6T to meet the ever-expanding data infrastructure demands of AI. Our product portfolio includes ZeroFlap (ZF) Active Electrical Cables (AECs) and ZF optical transceivers, OmniConnect memory solutions, and a suite of retimers and DSPs for optical and copper Ethernet and PCIe, all leveraging the PILOT diagnostic and analytics software platform. Credo innovations enable our customers to connect the systems that connect the world. Credo is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees and welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, genetic information, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation to navigate our website or complete the application process, email View email address on click.appcast.io.