Head of Datacenter Delivery

Etched.ai; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 300,000 - 420,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision

Housing subsidy and relocation support

Wellness benefits

Daily meals in office

Unlimited compute budget

Job summary

Etched is seeking a Head of Datacenter Delivery to own turnkey compute facilities—from site selection to handover. You will direct power, cooling, racks, and construction schedules across multiple sites, ensuring safety, reliability, and timely delivery.

This hands-on leadership role requires deep vendor networks, strong budgeting discipline, and the ability to translate a hardware roadmap into practical data center builds for sale.

Qualifications

• Track record delivering large-scale datacenters from site selection through commissioning and handover.
• Established network across the datacenter ecosystem with actionable opportunities.
• Strong technical judgment on power, cooling, networking, and construction.
• Experience leading teams and managing budgets, contractors, and delivery partners.
• Ability to anticipate infrastructure needs from a hardware roadmap and adapt plans.
• Hands-on, resourceful approach to drive execution across engineering, real estate, and operations.

Responsibilities

• Stay connected to product milestones and translate them into forecasts, site requirements, and phased delivery plans.
• Build and manage a sourcing pipeline for sites, power, and equipment with multiple partners.
• Own site selection, diligence, preconstruction, budgets, permitting, and long-lead procurements.
• Evaluate designs and options to find faster, cost-effective build methods without compromising safety.
• Deliver datacenter and lab projects through construction, rack installation, commissioning, and handover.
• Build a repeatable turnkey delivery process with documentation and training support.
• Lead and grow the delivery team and manage risks, timelines, and vendor performance.

Skills

Datacenter delivery leadership

Project management

Budget and cost control

Vendor and partner management

Power and cooling systems knowledge

Cross-functional collaboration

Construction and site development

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 oninference. 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

We are looking for a Head of Datacenter Delivery to build Etched’s turnkey compute capability: sourcing sites and power, building out datacenters, installing our racks, and delivering fully operational facilities ready for sale. You will also own our internal datacenter and lab buildouts, translating the product roadmap into power forecasts, sourcing priorities, and construction schedules. This is a hands-on leadership role: success means delivering working compute, not just securing space and power.

Key responsibilities

• Stay deeply connected to product milestones, production ramps, and bring-up schedules. Translate these into power and capacity forecasts, site selection requirements, and phased delivery plans.

• Build a strong sourcing pipeline for sites, power, and equipment. Develop relationships across GPU clouds, datacenter brokers and operators, developers, landlords, utilities, and equipment suppliers to uncover opportunities early.

• Own site selection, diligence, and preconstruction. Validate power availability and energization timelines, assess buildout requirements, and establish budgets, permitting paths, and long-lead procurement plans.

• Challenge design assumptions and find faster, more cost-effective ways to build. Work with engineering and delivery partners to evaluate design modifications, repurposed facilities, and used or refurbished equipment without compromising safety, reliability, or hardware requirements.

• Own datacenter and lab delivery through construction, rack installation, integrated facility and system commissioning, and handover to operations. Be accountable for schedule, budget, safety, and quality, including securing long-lead equipment and coordinating utility readiness.

• Build a repeatable turnkey delivery process, including testing, documentation, operator training, and coordination with Legal and Finance to prepare complete facilities and their real estate or leases for sale and transfer.

• Build and lead an exceptional delivery team, in addition to coaching and growing the existing team. Hold developers, contractors, and other partners accountable, give leadership clear visibility into risks and tradeoffs, and resolve problems before they affect product milestones.

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

• A track record of delivering large-scale datacenters or similarly complex, power-intensive facilities from site-selection through commissioning and operational handover.

• An established network across the datacenter ecosystem and the ability to turn relationships into actionable site, power, and equipment opportunities.

• Strong technical judgment across power, cooling, networking, and construction, including the ability to evaluate designs, equipment alternatives, and realistic delivery timelines.

• Experience leading teams and managing construction budgets, contractors, and delivery partners against demanding schedules.

• The ability to understand a hardware roadmap deeply enough to anticipate infrastructure needs and adapt plans as requirements change.

• A hands-on, resourceful approach: you challenge assumptions, find practical alternatives, and drive execution across engineering, real estate, construction, and operations.

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

• Delivering high-density AI/HPC infrastructure, including liquid-cooled, rack-scale deployments.

• Developing turnkey infrastructure projects that combine operational systems with the underlying real estate or lease.

• Building hardware bring-up, validation, or production test labs.

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. Our addressable market is the entirety of inference, unlike many of our competitors.

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.