High-Speed Peripheral Firmware Lead

The role

Lead a team that writes low-level firmware for the high-speed peripherals of a custom AI accelerator chip, including PCIe, HBM and Ethernet. You will work from early design through first-silicon bring-up and production.

What you will do

• 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 firmware architecture and implementation for these hardware blocks, 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 hardware and firmware issues to resolution.
• Optimize peripheral configurations and firmware behavior for performance and reliability.
• Set technical direction, drive design and code reviews, and mentor engineers while staying hands-on.

Required qualifications

• 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 with ASICs, SoCs, embedded processors or complex hardware platforms.
• Deep technical knowledge of at least one high-speed interface, such as PCIe, HBM, Ethernet or a similar peripheral.
• Experience with hardware initialization, register-level programming and debugging hardware/software interactions.
• 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 hardware validation teams.
• Experience providing technical direction, reviewing designs and mentoring other engineers.

Nice to have

• Pre-silicon firmware development using simulation, emulation or FPGA platforms.
• First-silicon bring-up of custom ASICs, SoCs, GPUs or other complex chips.
• Firmware development for PCIe, HBM, Ethernet, memory controllers or high-speed interconnects.
• Hardware/software co-design, including defining register interfaces and firmware requirements alongside RTL teams.
• Debugging complex issues involving hardware initialization, data movement, synchronization or peripheral performance.
• Experience optimizing firmware and hardware configurations for latency, throughput and reliability.
• Building low-level firmware or driver architectures that support multiple silicon generations.
• Experience leading small, highly technical engineering teams while remaining hands-on.

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 (Santana Row).
• Wellness benefits covering fitness, mental health and more.
• Daily lunch and dinner in the office.
• Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification.

Before you apply

• Relocation support is offered for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row).

About the company

Etched builds hardware for frontier AI, co-designing chips, racks, software and manufacturing with a focus on inference. It is backed by hundreds of millions in funding from top-tier investors.