About Etched

Etched is building AI chips that are hard-coded for individual model architectures. Our first product (Sohu) only supports transformers, but has an order of magnitude more throughput and lower latency than a B200. With Etched ASICs, you can build products that would be impossible with GPUs, like real-time video generation models and extremely deep chain-of-thought reasoning.

Firmware Engineer 

We are looking for a Firmware Engineer with experience in Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) embedded systems development. The ideal candidate will contribute to firmware design, implementation, and optimization for embedded platforms, focusing on RTOS, low-level software, memory controllers, Ethernet protocol, and boot loaders.

Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, and maintain firmware solutions for embedded systems.
• Develop device drivers, boot loaders, and low-level software modules for various hardware components, including memory controllers, ethernet, PCIe, and serial interfaces such as I2C and JTAG
• Collaborate closely with hardware teams to comprehend architecture, specifications, memory controllers, boot loader, external IP, requirements, and boot sequence. 
• Conduct debugging, testing, and validation of firmware on target platforms, boot loader reliability, and verification on hardware simulation environment

Requirements:

• Two years of experience in firmware development for RTOS embedded systems
• Proficiency with low-level code for boot loaders and device drivers for memory controllers
• Proficiency in C/C++ programming for embedded systems.
• Familiarity with GPIO, I2C, JTAG
• Familiarity with hardware bring-up, debugging tools, ARM, or other embedded architectures.
• Use of electronics lab equipment (e.g. oscilloscopes)

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience working in hardware simulation/emulation environments
• Experience with HBM, PCIe, or Ethernet SERDES
• Familiarity with Verilog language

How we’re different:

Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson. We think most of the progress in the AI field has come from using more FLOPs to train and run models, and the best way to get more FLOPs is to build model-specific hardware. Larger and larger training runs encourage companies to consolidate around fewer model architectures, which creates a market for single-model ASICs.

We are a fully in-person team in Cupertino, 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.

Benefits:

• Full medical, dental, and vision packages, with 100% of premium covered, 90% for dependents
• 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 Cupertino