Optical Systems Engineer

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 looking for an exceptional Optical Systems Engineer to join our team. In this role, you will own the definition and implementation of the optical interconnect architecture for our next-generation accelerator systems and help us scale our manufacturing capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead optical link architecture and system design for Etched's accelerator systems

• Evaluate and integrate next-generation interconnect technologies (such as NPO, CPO, and OCI) into our product roadmap

• Drive prototypes through definition, validation, and the transition to volume production

• Partner with Signal Integrity, PCB, ASIC, Thermal, and Mechanical Engineering teams to implement electrical-optical interfaces in high-performance AI servers

• Engage optical module, laser, and PIC suppliers on specifications, qualification, and integration

• Capture multi-rack interconnect requirements including topology, reach, connectors, and fiber management to ensure our products meet them

• Bring up optical interfaces on the accelerator card and debug link issues using BERTs, sampling scopes, and OSAs

• Define optical bring-up strategies and equipment while supporting test development for high-volume manufacturing

• Own optics-related documentation, including AVLs, fiber/cable BOMs, serviceability guidelines, and assembly procedures

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

• 5–10 years of experience in optical interconnect, transceiver, or photonic system design and development for high-density compute systems

• Expertise across advanced optical interconnect architectures, including Co-Packaged Optics (CPO), Near-Packaged Optics (NPO), Optical Compute Interconnect (OCI), Linear Pluggable Optics (LPO), and emerging form factors (XPO)

• Clear understanding of architectural tradeoffs across these technologies: energy-per-bit, bandwidth density, reach, latency, serviceability, and reliability

• Strong fundamentals in optical link engineering, including link-budget analysis, IL/RL, OSNR, eye diagrams, jitter, BER, and FEC margining

• Working knowledge of laser sources, modulators, TIAs, and DSPs/retimers

• Knowledge of high-speed host interfaces such as 100G/200G-per-lane PAM4

• Experience with traditional pluggable solutions (OSFP, QSFP-DD)

• Deep familiarity with photonic-electronic co-design and advanced packaging methods, such as fiber-attach (edge couplers, grating couplers, V-groove FAUs, detachable optical connectors), optical interposers, and 2.5D/3D heterogeneous integration

• Comfort co-designing optical engines alongside the ASIC, substrate, package, and cold-plate-integrated liquid cooling solutions

• Conversant in relevant industry standards and MSAs (OCI, Open CPX, OIF, UCIe)

• Proven track record of bringing up optical links and PIC-based subsystems alongside silicon, including root-cause debugging with PIC foundries, ELS vendors, and OSATs

• Deep understanding of datacenter infrastructure, specifically high-power (>10 kW) liquid-cooled AI servers and cluster-scale optical fabrics

• Passionate about modern AIs like ChatGPT, and willing to learn about them on the job

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

• Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification

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.