Feeny
Etched

Firmware Engineer (Taiwan) at Etched (Taipei, Taiwan)

Etched· Taipei, Taiwan·

Role details

Work type
Onsite
Employment
Full-Time
Skills
Software developmentData structuresAlgorithmsFirmware designFirmware implementationFirmware troubleshootingEmbedded architecturesI2CSPIPCIeDRAMScalability
Benefits

Competitive Compensation Packages · Generous Equity Packages · Comprehensive Insurance Coverage

Etched at a glance

Transformer-specific ASICs and rack-scale systems that hardwire the transformer into silicon for faster, cheaper AI inference.

Etched designs transformer-specific ASICs and full rack-scale inference systems. Its Sohu chip hardwires the transformer architecture directly into silicon, trading a GPU's general-purpose flexibility for far higher throughput, lower latency, and better power efficiency on AI inference. Customers buy complete co-designed clusters, chip plus rack plus software, not standalone chips.

$800M raised · latest: $500M · led by Stripes · Dec 2025 (reported Jan 2026) · backed by Stripes, Peter Thiel, Ribbit Capital, VentureTech Alliance

Summary

The Firmware Engineer will co-develop cutting-edge software optimized across hardware and software for large transformer models. Responsibilities include solving challenges across the full stack, from low-level drivers and APIs to high-level applications, to support AI solutions in NLP and generative media.

Job description

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

  • Co-Develop cutting-edge software optimized across hardware and software driving the full potential of very large AI models.
  • Solve challenging problems across the full stack, from low-level drivers and APIs to high-level applications and frameworks.
  • Contribute to the development of AI solutions that will revolutionize industries like natural language processing, chain of reasoning automation, generative media.

You may be a good fit if you have

  • Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
  • 3 years of experience in software development, and with data structures/algorithms.
  • 3 years of experience developing and testing software on launching products.
  • 3 years of experience with firmware design, implementation, and troubleshooting.
  • 3 years of experience with embedded architectures, IO technologies (I2C, SPI, PCIe, DRAM etc.), as well as concepts like scalability, fault tolerance, and consistency.

Strong candidates may also have experience with (Nice-to-have qualifications)

  • Master’s degree Computer Science, or a related technical field.
  • Experience resolving customer-related issues.
  • Experience solving ambiguous problems.
  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

Benefits

  • Competitive compensation packages including generous equity packages
  • Comprehensive insurance coverage and other top-of-market benefits
  • Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification

How we’re different

Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson incompleteideas.net/BitterLesson.html. 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 and Taipei, 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 as needed.

Why work at Etched

  • Mission-driven, high-impact engineering: “Building the hardware for superintelligence” – the company is solving one of the hardest problems in compute (inference efficiency) with a focused team.
  • Top-tier team and learning environment: Colleagues from Google, NVIDIA, Apple, Tesla, Broadcom, and Intel; exposure to full-stack chip-to-system design.
  • In-office culture: All roles are in-office (Cupertino and San Jose, CA). The company emphasizes on-site collaboration for hardware development. Notable perks are not heavily advertised, but compensation is competitive for the AI hardware space (equity-heavy).
  • Growth trajectory: 141% headcount growth YoY, hundreds of open roles, and a $5B valuation signal strong backing and career acceleration potential.
  • Intellectual challenge: Work on chip simulation, RTL design, system validation, or software infrastructure for cutting-edge AI inference.

Application questions