About Etched

Etched is building the world’s first AI inference system purpose-built for transformers, delivering order-of-magnitude improvements in performance, cost, and latency over GPU-based solutions. Our purpose-built ASICs and tightly integrated systems enable entirely new classes of AI products, from real-time video generation to deeply parallel reasoning agents. Backed by hundreds of millions of dollars from leading investors and built by world-class engineers, Etched is redefining the infrastructure layer for the fastest-growing industry in history.

Job Summary

As a Field Applications Engineer for Datacenter and AI Systems, you will serve as a deeply technical, customer-facing expert supporting the deployment, scaling, and operation of Etched AI accelerators and systems in production datacenter environments. This role sits at the intersection of hardware, software, networking, and distributed AI workloads, working directly with cloud providers, AI labs, and enterprise customers.

You will be responsible for guiding customers from early system design through large-scale rollout, troubleshooting complex cross-stack issues, validating performance, and ensuring successful production deployments. You will also act as a critical feedback loop between the field and Etched’s internal silicon, systems, and software teams, shaping product direction based on real-world customer needs.

This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy hands-on debugging, working in live datacenter environments, and helping customers deploy cutting-edge AI infrastructure at scale.

Key responsibilities

• Support customers through the full lifecycle of Etched system deployments, from early architecture discussions to production rollout and scaling

• Work hands-on with large-scale datacenter environments to bring up, validate, and debug Etched accelerator-based systems

• Design, validate, and troubleshoot high-performance networking solutions for AI systems, including Ethernet-based low-latency fabrics

• Diagnose performance, reliability, and integration issues across hardware, firmware, drivers, operating systems, and networking stacks

• Collaborate closely with customer engineering teams on system bring-up, benchmarking, and distributed workload validation

• Build, configure, and maintain lab and customer environments for testing, qualification, and debugging

• Partner with internal silicon, systems, firmware, and software teams to resolve field issues and communicate customer requirements

• Produce clear technical documentation, issue reports, and status updates for both customers and internal stakeholders

• Translate customer feedback and field observations into actionable insights that influence product roadmaps and system improvements

• Mentor and support junior field engineers as the organization scales

• Travel up to approximately 20 percent to support onsite customer engagements, deployments, and technical reviews

You may be a good fit if you have

• Experience supporting datacenter customers in systems, networking, AI infrastructure, or field engineering roles

• Strong understanding of networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, RDMA, and low-latency Ethernet

• Hands-on experience with high-speed networking technologies such as 100GbE and 400GbE

• Deep experience with Linux system installation, configuration, debugging, and performance tuning

• Background working with distributed systems and large-scale compute clusters

• Familiarity with AI and machine learning workloads, frameworks, and performance characteristics

• Understanding of server architectures, system bring-up processes, remote management, and datacenter operations

• Proven ability to debug complex, cross-stack issues involving tight hardware and software interactions

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, particularly when explaining complex technical topics to customers and partners

• Ability to operate independently, manage multiple priorities, and drive issues to resolution in fast-moving environments

Benefits

• Full medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage

• Housing subsidy of $2,000 per month for employees living within walking distance of the office

• Daily lunch and dinner provided in the office

• Relocation support for those moving to West San Jose

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 (Santana Row), 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.