Director of Systems

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.

Director of Systems

We are seeking a highly experienced Director of Systems to join our team and lead efforts to build an OAM-compliant system around our chip. The ideal candidate has built similar systems before, and understands that “done fast” is often better than “perfect”, and believes in building systems at the same time as chips, instead of building them after.

This role will report directly to the CTO.

Responsibilities:

• Lead design and development of the mezzanine card and base board for Etched’s accelerator module
• Work with our procurement staff and external OEMs/ODMs to purchase server chassis, PCBs, electronic components, and other parts
• Collaborate closely with hardware teams to comprehend architecture, specifications, memory controllers, boot loader, external IP, requirements, and boot sequence
• Understand datacenter customer requirements, and ensure our server meets them
• Manage the SIPI, PCB, and mechanical engineers on our platform team

Requirements:

• 10 years of experience in system development and management
• Proven track record of designing systems alongside silicon
• Deep understanding of datacenter needs, especially with respect to high power (>10 kW) AI servers
• Experience working with demanding SIPI requirements
• Passionate about modern AIs like ChatGPT, and willing to learn about them on the job

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