--- title: 'Security Engineer at Etched' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/security-engineer-etched-san-jose-eks7r852qmkr' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-07' --- # Security Engineer at Etched - **Company:** [Etched](https://feeny.ai/companies/etched) - **Location:** San Jose, CA - **Compensation:** $150k–$250k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-02-18 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-07 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/etched/5bbcfd60-5917-4698-a7fc-d7e6bb16da62/application **Skills:** Python, Go, Bash, C, Rust, SIEM, SOAR, EDR, XDR, Zero Trust Architecture, SASE, CASB, Okta, Google Workspace, FreeIPA, SDWAN, VPN, Firewalls, IDS/IPS, Network Segmentation > The Security Engineer protects networks, systems, and applications by designing and operating monitoring, detection, and response infrastructure. This role involves managing security baselines, integrating telemetry, leading vulnerability management, and implementing zero-trust architectures to safeguard AI hardware... ## 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 At Etched, building and maintaining a secure yet friction-free computing environment is central to our mission. As a Security Engineer, you will protect the networks, systems, and applications that enable our engineers to push the limits of AI hardware. You will design, implement, and operate the monitoring, detection, and response infrastructure that safeguards Etched’s intellectual property, high-performance compute clusters, and developer workflows across both on-prem and cloud environments. You will partner with infrastructure, IT, application, and external provider teams to build systems that are secure by design, resilient under pressure, and seamless and easy to use for the end users. This role combines hands-on technical depth with a focus on scalability and automation. You will take ownership of Etched’s security posture across infrastructure, IT, and applications, driving proactive threat detection, real-time monitoring, and rapid incident response. Your decisions will always balance maintaining full firm-wide velocity while improving our security and defense posture. You will develop tools, automation, and workflows that evolve with our rapidly growing and expanding footprint and ensure that security enhances, rather than hinders, innovation. If you are motivated by precision, ownership, and impact, you will find Etched the ideal place to advance your craft and contribute to the future of AI computing. ## Key Responsibilities - Manage and harden security baselines across on-prem, hybrid, and cloud systems, ensuring strong protection while maintaining speed and usability. - Integrate telemetry, logging, tracing, and management of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data across the entire environment to provide unified and comprehensive observability into infrastructure and application activity. - Lead vulnerability management, patching, and configuration assurance programs to reduce exposure and maintain a consistent security posture. - Partner with infrastructure, IT, and application teams to strengthen identity, access, and network security through Okta, Google Workspace, and FreeIPA. - Implement and maintain zero-trust network architectures, SASE controls, CASB solutions, and conditional access policies that protect both users and data across environments to ensure full access and full control of our data and IP regardless of location or device. - Operate and enhance security operations tooling, including SIEM, SOAR, and EDR/XDR platforms, to ensure comprehensive monitoring and rapid detection of threats. - Develop and tune detection logic, automation, and playbooks for identifying and responding to threats such as insider activity, lateral movement, and anomalous behavior. - Investigate and respond to security incidents, performing root-cause analysis, containment, and remediation while coordinating with engineering and IT. - Build automation, scripts, AI agents, and integrations that streamline monitoring, alerting, and remediation workflows to improve efficiency and reliability. - Establish metrics, dashboards, and feedback mechanisms to measure detection coverage, response time, and overall security health. - Promote a culture of security awareness and ownership across engineering teams, ensuring that protection and productivity advance together. Representative Projects - Implementing a centralized security telemetry pipeline that aggregates logs and signals from networks, compute clusters, storage, endpoints devices, build systems, and cloud services into a unified SIEM for improved detection coverage. - Designing and developing Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) workflows to automate repetitive tasks like alert triage, data gathering, and initial containment, which improves SOC efficiency. - Help build a secure and flexible end user access framework that uses SDWAN, SASE, CASB, conditional access, EDR and XDR, and MDM/MAM to support productive, friction-free and secure work from any location using different devices. - Network Security Monitoring: Configuring and monitoring network intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS) and firewalls to detect anomalies in network traffic, especially on the SDWAN and client VPN links - Creating and refining detailed, documented incident response plans and playbooks tailored to specific scenarios, such as a breach in a lab environment or a compromised silicon testing machine. - Conducting regular vulnerability assessments and penetration testing on internal systems and applications, then coordinating with relevant teams to manage and remediate identified weaknesses. You May Be a Good Fit If You Have - 5-7+ years of experience in security engineering, SOC operations, detection engineering, incident response, or a similar role that blends hands-on technical work with analytical problem solving. - Strong software engineering skills with Python, Go, Bash, (C and Rust a major plus), including the ability to design, implement, and maintain high-quality code, automation frameworks, services, and integrations that improve security, observability, and operational efficiency. - Proficiency with SIEM and SOAR platforms, including experience building detections, dashboards, and automated workflows. - Deep understanding of EDR and XDR platforms, endpoint security hardening, and telemetry collection across macOS, Linux, Windows, and server environments. - Experience implementing or supporting zero trust architectures, including conditional access, SASE, CASB, and identity-driven access control models. - Familiarity with IAM and SSO systems such as Okta, Google Workspace, and FreeIPA and the ability to design secure identity, access, and authentication policies. - Strong networking knowledge, including SDWAN, VPN, IDS and IPS, firewall administration, segmentation strategy, and monitoring of network traffic for anomalies. - Hands-on experience managing or building security telemetry pipelines, log ingestion frameworks, or observability systems that support both structured and unstructured data. - Solid understanding of threat modeling, the MITRE ATT and CK framework, attacker tradecraft, and common detection and response patterns. - Experience performing vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, or secure configuration reviews and collaborating with teams to remediate identified risks. - Exposure to cloud and hybrid environments such as AWS, GCP, or on-prem clusters and the ability to evaluate risks and implement protective controls across these environments. ## Benefits - Full medical, dental, and vision packages, with generous premium coverage - Housing subsidy of $2,000/month for those living within walking distance of the office - Daily lunch and dinner in our office - Relocation support for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row) - Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification ## How we’re different Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/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 (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 ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Etched designs and manufactures specialized ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) that are hardwired to run transformer-based AI models, offering an order-of-magnitude improvement in inference cost and energy efficiency over general-purpose GPUs. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series B / later stage; total raised $800M as of June 2026) - **Headquarters**: San Jose, California, USA (also has offices in Cupertino, CA; Sacramento, CA; and small presence in Taiwan, Canada, UK, Bulgaria) - **Founded**: 2022 - **Founders**: Gavin Uberti (CEO), Robert Wachen (President & COO), Chris Zhu (Co-Founder) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: AI hardware / semiconductor design / computer hardware manufacturing - **Target customers**: Frontier AI labs, hyperscalers, and enterprises running large-scale transformer inference workloads (B2B, enterprise) - **Mission / purpose**: Build hardware for superintelligence – specifically, the world’s most powerful servers for transformer inference. ## Products & Services - **Sohu Chip (ASIC)**: A transformer-specific ASIC manufactured by TSMC. It burns the transformer architecture directly into silicon, eliminating the overhead of general-purpose GPUs for inference. - **Frontier Inference Clusters**: Full-stack systems that bundle the Sohu chip with custom-designed racks, networking, and software. Customers place orders for complete systems, not just chips. Etched claims they deliver more tokens per dollar and per watt for dense models, sparse MoEs, diffusion models, and more. - **Software Stack**: Includes compiler and runtime optimizations built by a team with deep experience (former Apache TVM developer, ex-Google TPU software lead). ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: $5 billion post-money valuation (as of December 2025 / disclosed June 2026) - **Key Metric**: $1 billion in contract orders (booked) for its systems; total funding of $800M (including an unannounced $500M round closed Dec 2025 led by Stripes) - **Notable Investors**: Stripes (lead), VentureTech Alliance, Jane Street, Hudson River Trading, Two Sigma, Ribbit Capital. Angel investors include Andrej Karpathy, Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, Arthur Mensch, Scott Wu, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Thiel. Earlier backers: Positive Sum, Primary Venture Partners. - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount: 258 employees (as of mid-2026), up 141% year-over-year - 100+ active job postings across engineering, operations, and business functions - $500M raise in late 2025; first chip manufactured by TSMC in 2025 and now being tested with customers - Talent sources include Google (21), Apple (17), NVIDIA (16), Tesla (11), Intel (10), AMD (5) ## Competitive Advantages - **Transformer-specific architecture**: Unlike GPUs (which are general-purpose), Etched’s chip is hardwired only for transformer operations, enabling drastically lower cost and latency for today’s dominant AI model architecture. - **Full-stack system play**: By selling entire inference clusters (chip + rack + software), Etched captures more value and delivers a turnkey solution competitive with NVIDIA’s DGX/HGX systems. - **Deeply experienced leadership**: - CEO Gavin Uberti (Harvard math researcher, AI compiler expert, Apache TVM contributor) - President Robert Wachen (co-founded Prod AI incubator; Thiel Fellow) - VP of Platform (ex-NVIDIA 22 years, built HGX/DGX systems) - VP of Software (ex-Google DeepMind, lead TPU v1–v5 software) - Chief Architect Saptadeep Pal (former Auradine co-founder, chiplet expert) - VP of Hardware Engineering Ajat Hukkoo (ex-Cypress CTO, shipped >$1B revenue products) ## Strategic Focus - **Scale manufacturing and customer deliveries**: With the first chip successfully fabricated, the company is now testing production systems and aims to fulfill $1B in pre-orders. - **Expand engineering talent**: Aggressively hiring across silicon design, validation, infrastructure, optics, and software to support volume ramp. - **Maintain technological lead**: Continue refining the ASIC for future transformer variants and MoE mixtures while building out a partner ecosystem. ## Why Work Here - **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. ## Sources 1. [etched.com/careers](https://www.etched.com/careers) 2. [builtin.com/company/etched](https://builtin.com/company/etched) 3. [linkedin.com/company/etched-ai](https://www.linkedin.com/company/etched-ai) 4. [cbinsights.com/company/etched](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/etched) 5. [techcrunch.com/2026/06/30/nvidia-competitor-etched-hits-5b-valuation-1b-in-sales-for-ai-chip/](https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/30/nvidia-competitor-etched-hits-5b-valuation-1b-in-sales-for-ai-chip/) ## Other roles at Etched - [EE Hardware System Engineer (TW)](https://feeny.ai/job/ee-hardware-system-engineer-tw-etched-taipei-fgncym9kzy6w) — Taipei, Taiwan - [Silicon Validation Engineer, Software](https://feeny.ai/job/silicon-validation-engineer-software-etched-san-jose-qhp3k9xqy5vr) — San Jose, CA - [RMA & Repair Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/rma-repair-lead-etched-san-jose-q0tmchh0yyrj) — San Jose, CA - [Advanced Packaging SI/PI Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/advanced-packaging-si-pi-engineer-etched-san-jose-47he7k0hp901) — San Jose, CA - [Substrate IC Package Layout Design Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/substrate-ic-package-layout-design-engineer-etched-san-jose-g36wmxc8ww9r) — San Jose, CA - [ECAD Librarian](https://feeny.ai/job/ecad-librarian-etched-san-jose-0h5kvj2cxzk4) — San Jose, CA - [Inventory Warehouse Coordinator](https://feeny.ai/job/inventory-warehouse-coordinator-etched-san-jose-49b0bs49ce57) — San Jose, CA - [Logistics Analyst (Taiwan)](https://feeny.ai/job/logistics-analyst-taiwan-etched-taipei-5xzc094cqgzn) — Taipei, Taiwan - [Communications](https://feeny.ai/job/communications-etched-san-jose-3f4bdr97hysp) — San Jose, CA - [Production Finance](https://feeny.ai/job/production-finance-etched-san-jose-qfypbv9eh0ws) — San Jose, CA