Silicon Validation Firmware Engineer for AI Accelerators

US Health Partners, LLC; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision packages

Housing subsidy

Relocation support

Wellness benefits

Daily lunch and dinner in our office

Unlimited compute budget

Job summary

Etched is seeking a Silicon Validation Firmware Engineer to develop the firmware and low-level software that validates our AI/ML accelerator ASICs across their lifecycle, from pre-silicon emulation and FPGA prototyping through post-silicon bring-up, characterization, and production ramp.

You will build the validation firmware, test content, and automation that prove our silicon works, and you will be hands-on debugging real hardware in the lab.

Qualifications

• Proficiency in C/C++ for firmware and Python for validation automation.
• Understanding of SoC architecture and memory subsystems.
• Experience with Linux, bootloaders, drivers, and bare-metal/RTOS environments.
• Bachelor's degree in EE/CE/CS or related field.

Responsibilities

• Develop and own low-level validation firmware across emulation and physical silicon.
• Lead early bring-up of first silicon: boot, initialization, feature enablement, and debug.
• Debug issues spanning firmware, RTL, electrical, protocol, and system levels; root-cause and resolve failures.
• Build firmware infrastructure including hardware abstraction layers (HALs) and low-level device drivers for compute units, memory subsystems, and high-speed interfaces.
• Develop and extend validation automation, result-capture, and regression frameworks (CI/CD) to run validation at scale.
• Author firmware-driven test plans and define coverage metrics across IP blocks and subsystems; execute functional, performance, and stress/corner-case testing.
• Validate and characterize custom IP blocks and accelerator components on both pre- and post-silicon platforms.
• Use debug consoles and lab tooling (JTAG, UART, logic/protocol analyzers) for silicon debug and characterization.
• Collaborate with design, verification, architecture, DFT, and driver teams to ensure smooth transitions from pre-silicon verification to post-silicon validation.

Skills

C/C++

Python

Linux

Embedded systems

Debugging

RTOS

RTL analysis

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field

Tools

JTAG/UART debuggers

Lauterbach

GDB

Oscilloscopes

Protocol analyzers

Job description

Etched is seeking a Silicon Validation Firmware Engineer to develop the firmware and low-level software that validates our AI/ML accelerator ASICs across their lifecycle, from pre-silicon emulation and FPGA prototyping through post-silicon bring-up, characterization, and production ramp.

You will build the validation firmware, test content, and automation that prove our silicon works, and you will be hands-on debugging real hardware in the lab.