Etched

New Media, Special Projects at Etched (San Jose, CA)

Etched· San Jose, CA·

Role details

Work type
Onsite
Employment
Full-Time

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

Job description

Job Summary We’re building a small team of multi-disciplinary creatives with the ambition to create the most consequential brand of the 21st century. Our mission is to run the world’s inference. Your work will define how the wider world understands who we are, what we’re building, and why it matters – all during the most important inflection in the company’s history.

If you’re a fan of our work and think we can do better, reach out and tell us what you’d change. We want to talk.

You may be a good fit if

  • You’ve created at least one “banger” across mediums (e.g. video, brand design, tweet, manifesto)
  • Your brain can’t stop generating ideas
  • You have a maniacal attention to detail
  • You’re curious
  • You’re looking for your magnum opus
  • You have extreme agency

Key Responsibilities

  • Create a brand that becomes synonymous with AI and its promise
  • Translate the founders’ vision into multi-media creative artifacts

Strong candidates may also have

  • A large X following
  • A defined viewpoint on the future of AI

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage
  • $500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits
  • Housing subsidy of $2.5k 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 and dinner in our office
  • Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification

How we’re different

Etched believes in theBitter 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.

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.

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