Data Center Engineer

The role

You will own the end-to-end lifecycle of data center and hardware lab environments. This includes facility selection, rack design, power distribution, networking layout, and capacity planning for high-density AI compute deployments.

What you will do

• Own rack layout, capacity planning, power distribution, network design, cabling, and physical deployment.
• Design and manage power distribution and redundancy architectures for high-density AI compute.
• Collaborate with facilities teams and external vendors to manage hardware labs.
• Partner with co-location vendors to evaluate sites, negotiate contracts, and enforce SLAs.
• Architect and implement high-speed networking infrastructure.
• Develop and maintain asset management systems, rack diagrams, and change control processes.
• Build and operate monitoring and alerting for environmental health.
• Define and execute preventive maintenance schedules and hardware lifecycle processes.
• Lead capacity planning cycles to forecast power, space, and network needs.
• Establish and enforce physical security procedures and access control policies.

Required qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on data center engineering or operations experience.
• Direct responsibility for physical hardware deployment, power architecture, and facility management.
• Experience designing and deploying high-density compute environments (20 kW/rack and above).
• Experience managing thermal and power challenges of high-density environments.
• Comfortable with structured cabling, fiber and copper plant management, and high-speed networking hardware at scale.
• Ability to read and interpret electrical one-line diagrams, raised-floor and hot-aisle/cold-aisle plans, and co-location facility documentation.
• Experience building or operating monitoring and DCIM tooling.
• Strong vendor management skills including writing RFPs and running competitive evaluations.

Nice to have

• Physical deployment and bring-up of custom or semi-custom server platforms.
• Liquid cooling systems (direct liquid cooling, rear-door heat exchangers, or immersion cooling).
• AI or HPC cluster environments - GPU or ASIC clusters, high-radix switch fabrics, RDMA networking.
• Scripting and automation (Python, Bash, Ansible).
• Working within a semiconductor or hardware startup.

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 and 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).