Etched

Senior Manufacturing Software Engineer at Etched (San Jose, CA)

Etched· San Jose, CA·

Role details

Work type
Onsite
Employment
Full-Time
Level
Senior

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

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 seeking a Senior Manufacturing Software Engineer to build the software platform that powers manufacturing test across new product introduction and mass production for our frontier AI systems.

This is a software engineering role embedded within Manufacturing Test Engineering, working closely with hardware, firmware, software, quality, and factory operations. You'll build the backend services, APIs, data pipelines, release infrastructure, and test station software that enable scalable, automated manufacturing across our global factory network. Your work will help ensure every Etched system can be built, tested, and deployed with speed, quality, and traceability.

Key Responsibilities

  • Design and build backend services, APIs, and data pipelines that support manufacturing test and factory operations.
  • Own software for manufacturing release management, deployment, versioning, and traceability across production environments.
  • Develop scalable manufacturing data platforms for test results, yield analysis, genealogy, and production reporting.
  • Build reusable manufacturing test station applications, operator interfaces, and automation frameworks.
  • Integrate manufacturing software with MES, SFIS, and other factory systems used by contract manufacturers.
  • Partner with Manufacturing Test, Hardware, Firmware, Software, Quality, and NPI teams to support product development through production ramp.
  • Productionize prototype engineering tools into reliable, production-ready manufacturing software.
  • Travel to domestic and international manufacturing partners to support factory bring-up and production deployments.

You may be a good fit if you have (Must-have qualifications)

  • 6+ years of experience building production software, backend services, or data platforms.
  • Strong Python development experience (or equivalent expertise in Go, Java, C#, or TypeScript with Python proficiency).
  • Strong software engineering fundamentals including testing, CI/CD, version control, code review, debugging, and production monitoring.
  • Experience designing scalable APIs, databases, data models, and distributed systems.
  • Experience integrating software with external systems and building reliable production services.
  • Experience developing internal applications, dashboards, or operator-facing software.
  • Comfortable owning technical architecture and building greenfield software platforms.
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
  • Willingness to work onsite from our San Jose office and travel internationally to manufacturing partners as needed.

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

  • Manufacturing software, factory automation, MES, SFIS, or production operations.
  • Manufacturing test software, hardware validation, or automated test infrastructure.
  • Yield analysis, manufacturing analytics, traceability, or genealogy systems.
  • Firmware release tooling or embedded software development.
  • AI servers, accelerator systems, networking hardware, storage systems, or other high-performance compute platforms.
  • Supporting first-generation hardware products through manufacturing scale-up in a fast-paced startup environment.

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

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.

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