Infrastructure Intern, Etched
More information about location
Office located in San Jose, CA
Designing specialised chips for language model inference
Be an early applicant
Designing specialised chips for language model inference
21-100 employees
Be an early applicant
More information about location
Office located in San Jose, CA
21-100 employees
Company mission
To create the world’s most powerful servers for transformer inference.
Role
Who you are
- Progress towards a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field
- Proficiency in C/C++ or Rust
- Proficiency in Python (for interns interested in systems software)
- Strong fundamentals in data structures and algorithms
- Strong understanding of low-level software engineering
- Strong understanding of hardware/software co-design
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills
- We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every qualification
Desirable
- Experience with Linux internals, kernel development, or driver debugging
- Experience with hardware diagnostics or interpreting hardware logs
- Exposure to server virtualization or CI/CD pipelines
- Experience with Rust or embedded development
What the job involves
- Our infrastructure role drives the development and adoption of next-generation infrastructure tooling, enabling Etched ASIC, Software, and Platform engineers to iterate faster, build more reliably, and push the boundaries of AI performance
- This includes working on our hybrid-cloud high-performance compute (HPC) clusters, massively parallel CI executions, Infrastructure-as-code, scale-out observability platform with LLM integration, and building high-quality tools that engineers love using
- 12-week paid internship (June - August 2026)
- Direct mentorship from industry leaders and world-class engineers
- Opportunity to work on one of the most important problems of our time
Our take
With AI developing rapidly, the chips that power them are doing so too. The computing requirements of technologies such as Chat GPT will increasingly require customised, hard-wired chips called ASICS, designed specially for the execution of AI models. Whilst GPUs are currently used for AI computing, Etched is making a bet on AI-hardwired chips becoming the predominant powering force of AI.
It’s a gamble, the founders themselves know that if transformers become obsolete, so will their AI-powering product. The SOHU chip that Etched builds differs from GPUs in that it has the AI architecture etched into the chip itself. General Processing Units are “general” and costly, so Etched is betting on specialised transformers taking their place in the near future.
Investors are drawn to Etched’s boldness. The 2022-founded company achieved $120 million in Series A funding just two years into its life, and received a further $500 million at the start of 2026. Etched plans to use this to amp up its competition with GPU company Nvidia, and claims to be 20 times faster than the latter’s AI-powered general processor - and significantly less costly too. Time will tell if Etched’s exciting and potentially revolutionary bet on tailored AI chips and transformers pays off.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Jan 2026
$500m
LATE VC
Jun 2024
$120m
SERIES A
Total funding: $625.4m
Company benefits
- Competitive Salary and Equity - We offer a competitive salary and equity package that aligns with industry standards
- Benefits - Your wellbeing is important to us. We offer unlimited PTO, life insurance, and a 401(k)
- Full Insurance Coverage - Our insurance includes full medical, dental, and vision with 100% of premium covered
Company HQ
Horace Mann and SJSU, San Jose, CA
Leadership
Robert Wachen
(Co-Founder & President)Also the Co-Founder of Prod and Mentor Labs, Birthday Cakes 4 Free Maryland and Generate Sales Online.
Gavin Uberti
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously Software Engineer at OctoML, Algorithms and BAckend Engineer at Coursedog and was a Software Engineer Intern at Xnor.ai.
Chris Zhu
(Co-Founder)Was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard and a Software Engineering Intern at Amazon and AvantStay. Was an Analyst at Harvard Undergraduate Capital Partners.
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