About Etched
Etched is building hardware for frontier intelligence. We co-design chips, racks, software, and manufacturing to deliver best-in-class throughput and latency across both prefill and decode workloads. Our first products are heavily focused on inference. Backed by hundreds of millions from top-tier investors and staffed by leading engineers, Etched is redefining the infrastructure layer for the fastest growing industry in history.
Job Summary
As an RTL Engineer at Etched, you will be critical in ensuring that our AI chips operate correctly and efficiently. You will develop and implement design verification strategies for both our existing and upcoming ASIC designs.
In this role, you will work closely with state-of-the-art architectures for machine learning. You do not need to have experience working with these yet, but you will be willing and able to learn quickly. You will work in a fast-paced environment with a high degree of autonomy, and be responsible for a key part of Etched’s success.
Representative projects
Implement a block to efficiently compute floating point math operators
Provide feedback to the uArch team to make sure blocks meet timing and area constraints
You may be a good fit if you
At least 5 years of work experience in RTL development.
Experience with high-speed digital logic.
Proficiency in standard RTL design and synthesis tools
Familiarity with verification work and writing test benches
Are able to learn quickly about transformers and other aspects of modern artificial intelligence
Willing to start quickly
Strong candidates may also have experience with (Nice-to-have qualifications)
Experience with PCIe, Ethernet, or HBM technologies
Familiarity with modern ML and LLM model architectures.
Familiarity with numerical representations and functions
Ability to program with Python or another scripting language
We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification.
Benefits
Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage
$500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits
Housing subsidy of $2k per month for those living within walking distance of the office
Relocation support for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row)
Various wellness benefits covering fitness, mental health, and more
Daily lunch + dinner in our office
Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification
How we’re different:
Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson. We are the first inference-focused frontier AI system, betting early on transformer and transformer-like architectures and on increasing model sizes. Our addressable market is the entirety of inference, unlike many of our competitors.
We are a fully in-person team in San Jose (Santana Row), and greatly value engineering skills. We do not have boundaries between engineering and research, and we expect all of our technical staff to contribute to both and work across disciplines as needed.
Skills Required
- At least 5 years of work experience in RTL development
- Experience with high-speed digital logic
- Proficiency in standard RTL design and synthesis tools
- Familiarity with verification work and writing test benches
- Ability to program with Python or another scripting language
Etched Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Etched and has not been reviewed or approved by Etched.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity growth is described as strong and significant equity is part of the package. High total compensation for technical roles reinforces the equity-led upside.
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Healthcare Strength — Medical, dental, and vision coverage include generous premium support, indicating robust core healthcare. This reduces employee cost exposure for essential coverage.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Daily lunch and dinner, a housing subsidy for those living near the office, relocation support, and wellness perks are highlighted. These offerings lower day-to-day living costs and support practical wellbeing.
Etched Insights
What We Do
By burning the transformer architecture into our chips, we’re creating the world’s most powerful servers for transformer inference.
