Head of Manufacturing Design Program Manager

About Etched

Etched is building the world’s first AI inference system purpose-built for transformers - delivering over 10x higher performance and dramatically lower cost and latency than a B200. With Etched ASICs, you can build products that would be impossible with GPUs, like real-time video generation models and extremely deep & parallel chain-of-thought reasoning agents. Backed by hundreds of millions from top-tier investors and staffed by leading engineers, Etched is redefining the infrastructure layer for the fastest growing industry in history.

Job Summary

Etched is seeking a Head of Manufacturing Design Program Manager to lead technical manufacturing readiness across new product introduction and mass production for our transformer-specific AI systems. This role sits at the intersection of design engineering, test engineering, SMT, FATP, and operations, driving cross-functional execution from early DFM reviews through production ramp and yield optimization. You will own manufacturing program health, supplier readiness, capacity planning, and executive-level manufacturing reporting for some of the highest performance AI hardware systems ever deployed.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive manufacturing technical readiness across NPI and mass production phases in close partnership with test engineering, FATP process engineering, SMT engineering, and hardware design teams.

• Lead DFM reviews with design engineering teams across L6/L10/L11 assemblies, identifying manufacturability risks, integration bottlenecks, and process constraints before production ramp.

• Own manufacturing readiness reviews, including weekly executive reporting on build readiness, factory status, process capability, yield trends, risk mitigation, and supplier execution.

• Partner with contract manufacturers and supply chain teams to develop production capacity plans, line bring-up schedules, tooling readiness, and ramp strategies.

• Drive process capability improvements and yield optimization initiatives across SMT, mechanical integration, and final assembly/test operations.

• Coordinate engineering issue resolution during prototype, EVT, DVT, PVT, and mass production builds, ensuring rapid root-cause analysis and closure.

• Establish manufacturing KPIs, escalation frameworks, and operational review mechanisms to improve production predictability and execution quality.

You may be a good fit if you have (Must-have qualifications)

• 10+ years of experience leading manufacturing operations, NPI, or technical program management for complex hardware systems in high-volume electronics or compute infrastructure environments.

• Deep expertise in one or more manufacturing disciplines including mechanical integration, test engineering, industrial engineering, SMT process engineering, or factory operations.

• Experience driving DFM and production readiness reviews for complex electromechanical assemblies and multi-board systems.

• Strong understanding of manufacturing development phases including EVT, DVT, PVT, and production ramp.

• Proven experience managing contract manufacturers, FATP partners, and cross-functional factory execution.

• Ability to communicate manufacturing status, risks, and tradeoffs clearly to executive leadership and engineering stakeholders.

• Willingness to work in-person from our San Jose office and travel internationally to manufacturing partners as needed.

Strong candidates may also have experience with (Nice-to-have qualifications)

• Experience scaling AI servers, accelerator systems, networking hardware, or other high-performance compute platforms.

• Familiarity with factory yield analytics, SPC methodologies, process capability metrics, and manufacturing data systems.

• Experience with liquid-cooled systems, high-density compute integration, or advanced packaging technologies.

• Hands-on experience with automated test infrastructure, board validation, or system-level manufacturing diagnostics.

• Background working closely with ASIC, systems, thermal, or reliability engineering teams.

• Experience building manufacturing organizations or operational frameworks from the ground up in fast-scaling environments.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage

  • $500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits

• Housing subsidy of $2k 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

How we’re different

Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson. We think most of the progress in the AI field has come from using more FLOPs to train and run models, and the best way to get more FLOPs is to build model-specific hardware. Larger and larger training runs encourage companies to consolidate around fewer model architectures, which creates a market for single-model ASICs.

We are a fully in-person team in San Jose and Taipei, and greatly value engineering skills. We do not have boundaries between engineering and research, and we expect all of our technical staff to contribute to both as needed.