Senior Firmware Engineer (Taiwan)

About Etched

Etched is building the world’s first AI inference system purpose-built for transformers - delivering over 10x higher performance and dramatically lower cost and 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 & parallel chain-of-thought reasoning agents. 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're searching for passionate software engineers to join our fast growing team. You'll have the opportunity to:

• Design cutting-edge software optimizing the performance of our Sohu chip and unlocking the full potential of very large transformer models.

• Co-Develop with a world-class team of hardware and software engineers to push the boundaries of AI technology.

• Solve challenging problems across the full stack, from low-level drivers and APIs to high-level applications and frameworks.

• Review code developed by other engineers and provide feedback to ensure best practices (e.g., style guidelines, checking code in, accuracy, testability, and efficiency).

• Contribute to the development of AI solutions that will revolutionize industries like natural language processing, chain of reasoning automation, generative media.

You may be a good fit if you have

• Strong programming skills in C++, Rust, and/or Python

• Experience with embedded systems, high-performance computing or distributed systems.

• Deep understanding of computer architecture and operating systems

• Passion for AI and a desire to make a real-world impact

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.

• 8 years of experience in software development, and with data structures/algorithms.

• 5 years of experience testing, and launching software products, and 3 years of experience with software design and architecture.

• 5 years of experience with firmware design, implementation, and troubleshooting.

• 5 years of experience with embedded architectures, IO technologies (I2C, SPI, PCIe, DRAM etc.), as well as concepts like scalability, fault tolerance, and consistency.

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

• Master’s degree or PhD in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.

• 3 years of experience in a technical leadership role leading project teams and setting technical direction.

• Experience with Java or Go, with the ability to resolve customer-related issues.

• Experienced in developing solutions to ambiguous problems with significant impact.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

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. 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 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.