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
Etched is building at-scale AI systems that will unlock faster, more efficient inference for billions of people, and the Supercomputing team is critical in enabling this mission. We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Engineer to join our Supercomputing team to help build the foundational software that powers our cluster-scale AI compute deployments. This role on the core team involves the development, integration, and debugging of critical system components, including on control-plane software, system bring-up, telemetry, orchestration primitives, and performance tuning at the hardware–software boundary.
Key Responsibilities
Architect and implement low-level control-plane software responsible for system bring-up, configuration, and management of cluster-scale AI compute deployments
Build system services that interact directly with hardware, firmware, and the operating system
Develop telemetry, logging, and tracing infrastructure for diagnosing failures and driving performance improvements
Implement orchestration primitives for managing devices, nodes, and racks
Profile and tune performance across PCIe, memory, networking, kernel, and runtime layers
Collaborate closely with hardware, firmware, kernel, and runtime teams to co-design system interfaces and behavior
You may be a good fit if you have
Strong proficiency in C/C++ or Rust for low-level systems programming
Deep understanding of Linux internals, kernel/user-space boundaries, and system-level debugging
Experience working close to hardware: drivers, DMA, interrupts, memory management, or device control paths
Strong debugging skills using logs, tracing, and low-level observability tools
Strong communication skills and comfort collaborating across hardware and software teams
Strong candidates may also have experience with (Nice-to-have qualifications)
Experience with data center orchestration technologies such as Kubernetes and Docker
Experience with kernel development, device drivers, or firmware-adjacent software
Familiarity with PCIe, NUMA, networking, or high-speed interconnects
Experience with tracing and profiling tools such as perf, eBPF, ftrace, or custom instrumentation
Experience taking complex systems from early bring-up through stable operation
Background in HPC, AI infrastructure, or large-scale compute systems
Experience designing system test harnesses and failure-injection frameworks
Familiarity with Kubernetes or cluster orchestration at the node or control-plane level
Benefits
Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage
$500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits
Housing subsidy of $2,500 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. 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.