Post-Silicon Validation Engineer

The role

The Post-Silicon Validation Engineer will bring up, validate, and characterize ASICs from first silicon through production ramp. This role ensures functional correctness, performance, and reliability of AI/ML accelerator hardware.

What you will do

• Drive early bring-up of first silicon, including boot, initialization, and debug of ASICs.
• Perform deep-dive debug of silicon issues across RTL, firmware, and system levels.
• Collaborate with design, verification, and board teams to root-cause and resolve functional and electrical issues.
• Validate and characterize custom IP blocks and accelerator components.
• Execute functional and performance validation of compute units and specialized processing elements.
• Conduct IP-level and full-chip stress testing and corner case analysis.
• Develop and extend post-silicon validation infrastructure, automation, and test suites.
• Implement efficient result capture, analysis, and regression frameworks.
• Utilize lab instrumentation for detailed signal and system characterization.
• Define validation strategies and coverage metrics across design blocks and subsystems.

Required qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in post-silicon validation, bring-up, and debug of ASICs
• Proven expertise in early silicon bring-up, debug, and validation
• Deep knowledge of peripheral interfaces and board-level debug
• Proficiency in C, Python, and scripting for validation automation
• Hands-on expertise with oscilloscopes, logic/protocol analyzers, and other validation lab tools
• Familiarity with firmware, bootloaders, and low-level silicon debug environments
• Strong problem-solving, analytical, and collaboration skills across hardware and software teams
• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field

Nice to have

• AI/ML accelerators experience
• Master's degree
• Low-speed peripheral interfaces (I2C, SPI, UART, JTAG)
• High-speed protocols (PCIe, Ethernet)
• Memory subsystems (HBM, DDR)
• Performance and thermal characterization
• AI/ML model profiling and workload correlation
• System-level validation of accelerators or server platforms

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)
• 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).