What are the responsibilities and job description for the NPI Engineer (PCBA) position at Etched?
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
As a NPI Electrical Engineer at Etched, you will own the electrical manufacturing side of our AI systems, ensuring seamless product introduction from NPI through high-volume ramp. You will collaborate with hardware, ASIC, mechanical, and reliability engineering to drive manufacturability, yield, and cost efficiency at scale. This role focuses on board-level bring-up, design-for-manufacturing (DFM), BOM risk management, and sustaining improvements to ensure our AI hardware meets the highest standards of quality and reliability.
Representative projects
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.
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
As a NPI Electrical Engineer at Etched, you will own the electrical manufacturing side of our AI systems, ensuring seamless product introduction from NPI through high-volume ramp. You will collaborate with hardware, ASIC, mechanical, and reliability engineering to drive manufacturability, yield, and cost efficiency at scale. This role focuses on board-level bring-up, design-for-manufacturing (DFM), BOM risk management, and sustaining improvements to ensure our AI hardware meets the highest standards of quality and reliability.
Representative projects
- Lead new product introduction (NPI) and sustaining engineering activities at board and system level.
- Drive Design for Manufacturing (DFM) reviews to ensure robust, scalable, and cost-effective production.
- Partner with Component Engineering, Supply Chain, and Hardware teams to influence component selection and mitigate manufacturing risk early in the design cycle.
- Own BOM structuring and risk management, ensuring supply resilience and cost control.
- Perform board bring-up and debug, applying DOE/EFA and hands-on lab work.
- Review and influence Process FMEA and Design FMEA, providing diagnostics input.
- Work directly with Contract Manufacturers (CMs) and ODMs to close capability gaps, improve yield, and qualify new components.
- Develop, release, and maintain product documentation across the lifecycle.
- Provide leadership in complex issue resolution and drive defect/yield improvement initiatives.
- Use industry-standard debug tools (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, TDR, etc.) to troubleshoot issues down to board and component level.
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field.
- 8 years of experience in manufacturing, product, or electrical engineering
- Strong knowledge of system hardware architectures and PCB fabrication/assembly processes.
- Experience with DFX/DFM, yield assessment, and board-level debug.
- Hands-on experience with PCB CAD/CAE tools (e.g., Allegro, Valor) and understanding of design-to-build flows.
- Proven ability to work across NPI and sustaining environments, from proto bring-up to ramp.
- Strong problem-solving skills with focus on yield, manufacturability, and cost optimization.
- Collaborative mindset to work effectively with cross-functional teams and suppliers.
- Full medical, dental, and vision packages, with generous premium coverage
- 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 San Jose (Santana Row)
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.
Salary : $2,000