Supercomputing Software Engineer (Taiwan) at Etched (Taipei, Taiwan)
Etched· Taipei, Taiwan·
Role details
Competitive Compensation · 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 Supercomputing Software Engineer develops and integrates foundational server infrastructure software, including BIOS, BMC firmware, and kernel-mode drivers. The role focuses on optimizing system performance, security, and reliability for AI inference systems and data center orchestration technologies.
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
We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Supercomputing Software Engineer to join our team, responsible for the foundational software that powers our server infrastructure. This role focuses on the development, integration, and debugging of critical system software components, including BIOS, BMC firmware, boot processes (including NetBoot), root of trust implementations, advanced system logging, and kernel-mode drivers. You will play a pivotal role in ensuring the reliability, security, and performance of our server platforms, and contribute to the integration of data center orchestration technologies at the node level.
Key Team Responsibilities
- Integrate and maintain BIOS and BMC firmware, ensuring robust and efficient server boot processes.
- Analyze DRAM timings, PCIe configurations, power state transitions etc. to ensure high performance and maximal reliability.
- Validating security features, including root of trust mechanisms, to protect system integrity and data security.
- Design and implement advanced system logging and diagnostic capabilities to facilitate efficient troubleshooting and performance analysis.
- Integrate and optimize node-level data center orchestration technologies, such as Kubernetes and Docker, into the system software stack.
- Develop and execute comprehensive test plans to validate system software functionality, stability, and performance.
- Collaborate with hardware and software teams to diagnose and resolve complex system-level issues.
Representative Projects
- Implement and validate secure boot processes, including root of trust verification.
- Design and implement advanced system logging and monitoring solutions.
- Optimize BIOS and BMC firmware for improved boot times and system stability.
- Integrate node-level container orchestration capabilities into the system software.
- Analyze and resolve complex system-level issues related to boot failures, hardware errors, and performance degradation.
- Analyze and optimize system level logging for large scale server deployments.
You may be a good fit if you have
- Proficiency in C/C++ or Python.
- Strong understanding of BIOS and BMC firmware architectures.
- Experience with server boot processes.
- Knowledge of root-of-trust and security principles.
- Strong understanding of operating systems (Linux preferred) and server hardware architectures.
- Experience with advanced system logging and diagnostic tools.
- Ability to analyze complex technical problems and provide effective solutions.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
- Experience with version control systems (e.g., Git).
- Experience with reading and interpreting hardware logs.
Strong candidates may also have experience with (Nice-to-have qualifications)
- Experience with data center orchestration technologies (Kubernetes, Docker).
- Experience with tracing tools like perf, eBPF, ftrace, etc.
- Experience with performance testing and benchmarking tools (gProf, vTune, Wireshark, etc.).
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines.
- Experience with Rust.
- Experience with kernel-mode driver development and debugging.
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.