Firmware Engineer

The role

This role owns the accelerator software that turns custom hardware into an inference system. You will work across the stack from first power-on through inference execution, spanning ASIC software, platform firmware, and host-side kernel and drivers.

What you will do

• Build software that runs directly on the accelerator
• Perform CPU initialization, RTOS, boot ROMs, bootloaders, MMU and IO drivers, ASIC/FW architecture and co-design, and on-device inference execution
• Translate inference software requests into low-level device operations and scheduling decisions
• Build microcontroller and FPGA firmware to bring custom hardware from powered off to operational
• Own power sequencing, board bring-up, telemetry, firmware updates, thermal and power management, and fault detection and recovery
• Work with hardware engineers through schematic design, bring-up, validation, and production
• Build software that connects the accelerator to the host and exposes it to the inference stack
• Work with Linux kernel and device drivers, PCIe and DMA, high-speed peripheral interfaces, memory management, FLR and virtualization/SR-IOV, and high-throughput, low-latency ring-buffer command flows

Required qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience
• Strong C/C++ and software engineering fundamentals
• Experience building and debugging low-level software that interacts directly with hardware
• Depth in one or more of firmware, embedded systems, device runtimes, operating systems, or kernel/driver development
• Experience shipping software on real hardware into production
• Familiarity with technologies such as ARM, PCIe, DMA, HBM, DRAM, Ethernet, UART, RTOS, or FPGA systems
• Strong systems intuition around performance, concurrency, memory, reliability, and fault handling

Nice to have

• Hardware bring-up experience on a new chip or board
• Experience with boot ROMs, secure boot, MMUs, RTOS, or CPU initialization
• Experience with PCIe virtualization, FLR, SR-IOV, DMA, ring buffers, or high-speed device communication
• Experience building accelerator runtimes, schedulers, command processors, or other latency-critical execution systems
• Experience using architecture details such as caching, memory hierarchy, or on-chip fabrics to make software decisions at nanosecond-level timescales
• Experience solving ambiguous problems where the hardware and software architecture evolve together
• Strong communication across firmware, hardware, architecture, kernel, and inference teams

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage
• $500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits
• Housing subsidy of $2,500 per month for those living within walking distance of the office
• Relocation support for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row)
• Various wellness benefits covering fitness, mental health, and more
• Daily lunch + dinner in our office
• Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification

About the company

Etched is building hardware for frontier intelligence by co-designing chips, racks, software, and manufacturing. They are a fully in-person team in San Jose (Santana Row).