High-Speed Peripheral Firmware Lead
Etched is an AI-hardware company building rack-scale frontier inference clusters.
Funding history
About Etched
Etched co-designs chips, racks, software, and manufacturing systems for efficient inference of frontier AI models, targeting throughput, latency, cost, and power efficiency across prefill and decode workloads.
Skills
Candidate Availability
Required and preferred rules are kept separate and reflect the wording in the original posting.
About the Role
You will lead the development of firmware that brings the high-speed peripherals of a custom AI accelerator to life. You will own the firmware architecture and implementation for PCIe, HBM, Ethernet and other interfaces, work closely with ASIC architects and RTL engineers, bring up new blocks on first silicon, and set technical direction while staying hands-on in implementation and debugging.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience
- Strong C/C++ programming skills and low-level software engineering fundamentals
- Experience developing firmware or drivers that interact directly with hardware
- Experience working with ASICs, SoCs, embedded processors, or complex hardware platforms
- Deep technical knowledge of at least one high-speed interface such as PCIe, HBM, or Ethernet
- Experience with hardware initialization, register-level programming, and debugging
- Strong understanding of computer architecture, memory systems, concurrency, and performance
- Experience owning complex firmware components and making technical design decisions
- Ability to work closely with ASIC architects, RTL engineers, and validation teams
- Experience providing technical direction, reviewing designs, and mentoring engineers
Responsibilities
- Lead a team developing low-level firmware to control, configure, and monitor PCIe, HBM, Ethernet, and other high-speed peripherals on a custom ASIC
- Own the firmware architecture and implementation from early design through silicon bring-up and production
- Develop and validate firmware in simulation and emulation environments before silicon is available
- Work with ASIC architects and RTL engineers to define hardware/software interfaces and debug integration issues
- Bring up new peripheral blocks on first silicon and drive issues to resolution
- Optimize peripheral configurations and firmware behavior for performance and reliability
- Set technical direction, drive design and code reviews, and mentor engineers
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage
- $500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits
- Housing subsidy of $2.5k per month for those living within walking distance of the office
- Relocation support for those moving to San Jose
- Wellness benefits covering fitness, mental health, and more
- Daily lunch and dinner in the office
- Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification