Senior HW Material Engineer, Nitro Team, Annapurna Labs

Annapurna Labs is the team behind the custom silicon and systems at the heart of AWS (Amazon Web Services) infrastructure — we operate like a start-up with the scale of the world's largest cloud provider.

The Nitro HW team at Annapurna Labs is looking for an experienced and technically deep Senior Material Engineer. In this role, you will be the primary technical owner for materials engineering across all Nitro card development — spanning PCB material selection and characterization, hybrid stackup design, and mechanical/thermal materials for the full Nitro portfolio. You will work cross-functionally with HW design, signal and power integrity, mechanical engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain teams to drive material decisions that balance performance, reliability, and long-term supply security.

As a senior engineer, this role goes beyond executing standard material engineering tasks. You are expected to challenge conventions, push the boundaries of what is achievable through rigorous experimentation, and introduce new materials and methodologies that enable next-generation Nitro cards hardware. You will lead complex material-related debug investigations during the cards development, define test and characterization methodologies, and represent Annapurna Labs with third-party vendors and suppliers as the technical authority for materials during card development and NPI.

Key job responsibilities
PCB Domain
- Own PCB material strategy for K2 cards: selection, qualification, and stackup design
- Challenge PCB construction defaults with full understanding of manufacturability risk
- Guide design teams on material selection for signal integrity and thermal requirements
- Lead material characterization experiments; own data analysis and decision outputs
- Introduce new PCB materials, balancing performance gains against qualification and supply chain risk

Mechanical & Thermal Domain
- Select and qualify TIMs, adhesives, encapsulants, and underfills for Nitro card assemblies
- Design vapor chamber and liquid cooling solutions for high-performance hardware
- Evaluate material performance under temperature cycling, vibration, and humidity conditions
- Define reliability test plans and own qualification data packages for NPI

Cross-Functional & Strategic
- Develop and socialize design rules, test methodologies, and manufacturing best practices
- Serve as materials engineering authority in design reviews, NPI gating, and supplier discussions
- Monitor EOL notifications, evaluate alternatives, and qualify drop-in replacements
- Mentor engineers, contribute to hiring, and raise the technical bar

About the team
Our Nitro Cards ("K2") are present in each and every server deployed at AWS, continuously innovating across new technologies, new server platforms, and new cloud services.
Nitro Cards serves critical roles in the server control plane and data path — delivering better performance, greater stability, and higher availability to customers at a global scale.
We work closely with the Nitro Silicon and Nitro Firmware and Software teams across definition, development, and mass production to optimize product value and accelerate time-to-market.
We learn from large-scale production health data and feed those insights back to continuously improve our products and processes.
Our success depends on world-class designs and the ability to deliver them on time, at scale, and with the best possible value for our customers — handling massive scale and the rapid integration of emerging technologies.

Basic qualifications

- 8+ years of direct experience in materials engineering for hardware products, encompassing PCB materials, laminate technologies, air and/or liquid cooling design aspects, and electronic assembly manufacturing processes
- B.Sc. or higher in Materials Engineering, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related field
- Deep expertise in PCB laminate systems: familiarity with high-speed/low-loss dielectric materials, hybrid stackup design principles, and the trade-offs between material classes used in high-performance electronic assemblies
- Experience with high scale product manufacturing and working with remote vendors
- Strong analytical skills: ability to design experiments (DOE), analyze data rigorously, and draw actionable conclusions

Preferred qualifications

- Experience with high-speed PCB materials and hybrid stackup design in data center or server hardware
- Familiarity with IPC and JEDEC standards for PCB and assembly materials
- Background in cloud or hyperscale hardware, with understanding of reliability, thermal, and supply continuity demands
- Track record leading new material introduction (NMI) programs from selection through production release
- Experience managing supply chain risk: EOL components, second-source qualification, and procurement decisions
- Demonstrated organizational influence through technical standards, cross-team initiatives, or hiring contributions

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