Build Engineer

Etched; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision

Housing subsidy

Relocation support

Wellness benefits

Daily meals

Unlimited compute budget

Job summary

Etched is building a new category of AI hardware in San Jose. We develop internal rack builds end to end, acting as an operations program manager and hands‑on engineer. You’ll plan each build, source parts, tools, and people, run on the floor, and fix blockers as volume ramps to production.

You’ll collaborate with mechanical, electrical, thermal, test, inventory, and lab operations to mature processes that scale with demand. This is a fast, hands‑on role in a growing company.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in mechanical, electrical, manufacturing, or aerospace engineering, physics, or equivalent hands‑on experience.
• Hands‑on hardware build experience.
• Track record of owning a build or hardware program end to end and delivering on time.
• Knowledge of manufacturing processes, reading drawings, and GD&T.
• Comfort working on the floor with technicians and clear communication with teams.
• Ability to move fast with incomplete information and stay calm when a build goes wrong.

Responsibilities

• Own internal rack and subassembly builds from kickoff to delivery, including schedule, material readiness, staffing, and on‑time completion.
• Run clear‑to‑build checks against the BOM and coordinate with inventory to prevent shortages.
• Write and maintain build procedures, work instructions, and travelers; transition assemblies from development to production.
• Review CAD models/drawings with design engineers to flag manufacturability issues early.
• Design or specify fixtures, tooling, and build stations for the team.
• Integrate subsystems into full rack assemblies and develop/run associated test procedures.
• Lead build technicians on the floor and be the first engineer on problems during builds.
• Streamline build flow by removing unnecessary steps to cut cycle time.
• Track build status and risks; report to leadership on what will ship and when.
• Turn lessons into scalable processes for future volume production.

Skills

Hands-on hardware

Build ownership

Floor engineering

Clear communication

Fast-paced

Education

Bachelor's in engineering or physics

Tools

CAD

GD&T

Python

Excel

Job description

About Etched

Etched is building hardware for frontier intelligence. We co-design chips, racks, software, and manufacturing to deliver best‑in‑class throughput and latency across both prefill and decode workloads. Our first products are heavily focused on inference. 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.

About Etched

Etched is building hardware for frontier intelligence. We co-design chips, racks, software, and manufacturing to deliver best‑in‑class throughput and latency across both prefill and decode workloads. Our first products are heavily focused on inference. 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 building a new category of AI hardware: frontier inference clusters. To bring them up at the pace this market demands, we build and integrate our own server racks in house, and that work is growing fast as we move from early builds into NPI and production.

As a Build Engineer, you'll own our internal builds end to end. Think of the role as an operations program manager for internal builds who is also a hands‑on engineer: you'll plan each build, get the parts, tools, and people in place, run it on the floor, and fix whatever slows it down. You'll work closely with our mechanical, electrical, thermal, test, inventory, and lab operations teams, and the processes you set up will become how Etched builds hardware as volume ramps.

Key Responsibilities

• Own internal rack and subassembly builds from kickoff to delivery, including schedule, material readiness, staffing, and on‑time completion
• Run clear‑to‑build checks against the BOM and work with inventory and supply chain to close shortages before they stop a build
• Write and maintain build procedures, work instructions, and travelers, and manage the transition of assemblies from development builds to production
• Review CAD models and drawings with design engineers to flag manufacturability, assembly, and serviceability issues early
• Design or specify the fixtures, tooling, and build stations the team needs
• Integrate mechanical, thermal, power, and electrical subsystems into full rack assemblies, and develop and run the test procedures that go with them
• Lead build technicians on the floor and be the first engineer on the problem when a build hits an issue
• Question requirements, remove unnecessary parts and steps, and simplify the build flow to cut cycle time
• Track build status, risks, and blockers, and give leadership a clear read on what will ship and when
• Turn lessons from each build into the processes and documentation we'll use as we scale into NPI and higher‑volume production

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

• A bachelor's degree in mechanical, electrical, manufacturing, or aerospace engineering, physics, or equivalent hands‑on experience
• Hands‑on experience building hardware
• A track record of owning a build or hardware program end to end and delivering it on time
• Working knowledge of manufacturing and assembly processes, reading drawings, and GD&T
• Comfort working on the floor alongside technicians, and clear communication with technicians, engineers, and leadership
• The ability to move fast with incomplete information and stay calm when a build goes wrong

Strong Candidates May Also Have Experience With (Nice‑to‑have Qualifications)

• Server, rack, data center, or other electronics hardware integration
• Building hardware at a high‑rate company in aerospace, automotive, or consumer electronics
• Designing fixtures and tooling in CAD
• PLM, MES, or ERP systems such as Teamcenter
• Scaling a build from prototype to volume production
• Python, Excel, or other scripting for build tracking and analysis

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

How We’re Different

Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson. We are the first inference‑focused frontier AI system, betting early on transformer and transformer‑like architectures and on increasing model sizes. Our addressable market is the entirety of inference, unlike many of our competitors.

We are a fully in‑person team in San Jose (Santana Row), 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 and work across disciplines as needed.