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Silicon Validation Engineer, Software

Etched· ASIC
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San JoseFull-timePosted 1mo ago

About the role

Seeking a Silicon Validation Firmware Engineer to develop firmware and low-level software that validates AI/ML accelerator ASICs across pre-silicon, FPGA prototyping, and post-silicon bring-up, characterization, and production ramp. Hands-on debugging in the lab to ensure functional correctness, performance, and reliability of Etched’s hardware-software stack.

Responsibilities

  • Develop and own low-level validation firmware in C/C++ that runs across emulation and physical silicon, providing test content pre-silicon and reusing it to drive post-silicon bring-up.
  • Drive early bring-up of first silicon: boot, initialization, feature enablement, and debug of ASICs.
  • Perform deep-dive debug of silicon issues spanning firmware, RTL, electrical, protocol, and system levels; root-cause and resolve failures.
  • Build firmware infrastructure including hardware abstraction layers (HALs) and low-level device drivers for compute units, memory subsystems, and high-speed interfaces.
  • Develop and extend validation automation, result-capture, and regression frameworks (CI/CD) to run validation at scale.
  • Author firmware-driven test plans and define coverage metrics across IP blocks and subsystems; execute functional, performance, and stress/corner-case testing.
  • Validate and characterize custom IP blocks and accelerator components on both pre- and post-silicon platforms.
  • Use debug consoles and lab tooling (JTAG, UART, logic/protocol analyzers) for silicon debug and characterization.
  • Collaborate closely with design, verification, architecture, DFT, and driver teams to ensure a smooth transition from pre-silicon verification to post-silicon validation, and to feed silicon issues back into revisions and firmware/driver workarounds.

Qualifications

  • Proficiency in C/C++ for firmware and bare-metal development, plus Python for validation automation and scripting.
  • Understanding of SoC/computer architecture (CPU cores, memory subsystems, caches, interconnects).
  • Solid low-level/embedded fundamentals: bootloaders, hardware abstraction layers, device drivers, register/interrupt programming, and bare-metal or RTOS environments.
  • Knowledge and familiarity developing and debugging in Linux environments.
  • Strong problem-solving, analytical, and cross-functional collaboration skills across hardware and software teams.
  • Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field (Master's a plus).

Skills

Required:C/C++PythonSoC/Computer ArchitectureEmbedded/Linux

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 and dinner in our office
  • Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification
Last updated Sep 17, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Etched

Etched is building frontier inference clusters: co-designs chips, racks, software and manufacturing to push the pareto frontier for AI hardware.

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